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Washington’s Head Quaters, Newburg, N. Y.—See p. 137. 


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Painted by Robert W. 


THE 


NORTH AMERICAN READER; 


CONTAINING 


A GREAT VARIETY OF PIECES IN PROSE AND POETRY, 


FROM VERY HIGHLY ESTEEMED 


AMERICAN AND ENGLISH WRITERS; 


ALSO, 


OBSERVATIONS ON GOOD READING ; THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 3 
THE CONSTITUTION CF THE UNITED STATES; POLITICAL DEFINITIONS 5 
VARIABLE ORTHOGRAPHY; CONCISE PRINCIPLES OF PRONUNCIA- 
TION; RULES FOR THE DIVISION OF WORDS; AND THE RULES 
FOR SPELLING THE PLURALS OF NOUNS, PARTICIPLES, 
PRESENT TENSE, AND PRETERIT OF VERBS, AND 
THE COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE 
DEGREES OF ADJECTIVES. 


DESIGNED FCR THE USE OF THE HIGHEST CLASSES IN SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES, 


BY LYMAN COBB, A.M. 


Author of the First Book, Spelling-bock, Expositor, School Dictionary, Miniature Lexicon, Primary Mas 
torial Lessons, Juvenile Reader, Nos. 1, 2, & 3, Sequel to the Juvenile Readers, Arithmetical Bu es 
and Tables, Explanatory Arithmetick, Nos 1 & 2, and Ciphering-book, Nos. 1 & 2 


yas 


FOURTH EDITION. 


PHILADELPHIA: 


DESILVER, THOMAS, & CO. 


TRENTON : 
B. DAVENPORT. 


1836. 


4 


» the book most generally used in the schools of our country, does not 


WHEN a new work is presented to the publick, almost every reader 
expects to find some reasons assigned by the author for his undertaking. 

The unusually great demand for the Juvenile Readers and the Sequel 
to them, and the frequent and earnest solicitations of the patrons of 
those works, as well as a belief that the addition of another volume, 
somewhat more mature in its character, was needed, to adapt the Series 
to the wants of the publick, were the chief inducements which led to 
the publication of the present work. 

Some persons may think, that books of a similar character have been 
sufficiently multiplied ; but, in answer to this, it may with propriety be 
remarked, that the greatest evidence of a spirit of improvement in our 
schools and academies, and that education is in a high state of prosperity, 
is the continually increasing demand for new school-books, which exists 
in every part of our country. Indeed, it may with perfect safety be stated, 
that when instructers become wholly content with the elements and 
principles which have long been in use, the progress of improvement is 
entirely at an end. ‘The spirit of the age is onward ; and while improve- 
ments are in progress, in every thing in which the mind of man is 
engaged, or on which the impress of man’s handiwork is exhibited, what 
philanthropist, what statesman, or what friend of our numerous and 
flourishing schools and academies, can, for a moment, wish to check 
the progress of improvement in our books, and systems of instruction ? 

In making this selection, the author has been strictly rigid in selecting 
such pieces only, as shall have a direct tendency to lead the scholars in 
the paths of virtue and religion, as well as to improve their taste in 
reading. Such improvement he has hoped to promote, by furnishing a 
book embracing selections of various character, written in a chaste and 
pure style, by eminent statesmen, pious divines, profound philosophers, 
and the most approved poets of this and other countries. 

It is well known, that the influence of school exercises in the formation 
of young minds, is very great; and, perhaps, that influence does not 
Operate with more force in any department of education than in the 
improvement which the mind receives from the exercise of reading. 
Chastity of thought, and purity of diction, have, therefore, been objects 

_of peculiar attention in the compilation of this work. 
The pieces in this work are chiefly American. ‘The “‘ English Reader,” 


‘contain a single piece or paragraph written by an American citizen. Is 
- this good policy? Is it patriotism? Shall the children of this great nation 


* be compelled to read, year after year, none but the writings and speeches 
* of men, whose views and feelings are in direct opposition to our institu- 


‘tions and our government? Certainly, pride for the literary reputation 


“Sof our own country, if not patriotism and good policy, should dictate to 
<us the propriety of inserting, in our school-books, specimens of our 
own literature ; and, it is certainly no disparagement to English reading 


3 
~< 
x 
ey 
~~ 


vi PREFACE. 


books, to state, that they are not adapted to American schools. The 
United States have political and civil institutions of their own ; and, 
how can these be upheld, unless the children and youth of our country 
are early made to understand them, by books, and other means of 
instruction 1 : 

In this book, as well as in the Juvenile Readers and the Sequel to 
them, nothing has been inserted which is sectarian, or in anywise calcu- 
lated to offend the feelings of persons, of any denomination. Whenever 
religion is the topick, it is treated of in a serious manner, with an ex- 
pression of its importance to man, without dictating to any one, in what 
particular manner he must worship, or what his creed must be, in order 
to make religion beneficial to him. 

The prose and poetry are designedly intermixed, as well as the dif- 
ferent subjects treated of by the writers, that the scholars may have a 
variety of subjects in each week, and that a monotonous tone would not 
be contracted by reading poetry every day for a number of weeks, or 
that the scholars would not become disgusted or fatigued with the read- 
ing of one style of pieces for a number of days in succession, It is be- 
lieved that the division of each lesson into verses, will be of great 
importance to the teacher, as well as scholar. 

In addition to the greater variety of matter in this work than is usual 
in other similar works, the Declaration of Independence, and the Con- 
stitution of the United States have been inserted, with appropriate ques- 
tions annexed, that the teacher may frequently examine the scholars, by 
way of testing their knowledge of these subjects, a knowledge of which 
is of the highest importance to every citizen of this country. The Po- 
litical Definitions, it is believed, will be invaluable to every scholar and 
reader. 

The importance of the class of words of Variable Orthography ; the 
Principles of Pronunciation; Accent; Syllabication; Rules for the 
Spelling of Plurals, Participles, &c., and the Questions to exercise the 
scholars in relation to them, will be obvious to every one A careful 
attention to the Observations on Good Reading, as well as the Pauses 
and Characters used in writing and printing prefixed to this work, will, 
it is believed, be of essential service to all classes of readers. In 
short, it may be remarked, that although this work was more particu- 
larly designed for the use of schools, yet it is confidently believed that 
it will be found an excellent companion for the student and professional 
man, and also a suitable Family Reading-Book. 

With these remarks, and an humble and ardent wish that the follow- 
ing work may be useful to the youth of our country, the author submits 
it to the patronage of an enlightened and candid community. 


LYMAN COBB. 
New York, March 25, 1835, 


INTRODUCTION. 
Observations on the Principles of Good Reading * ° . : 
The Stops or Points, and Questions on the Same : : 7 ° 
Lesson LESSONS IN PROSE. 
1. The Schoolmaster ; . changes C. VERPLANCK. 
2. .Female Influence i - : . GANNETT. 
3. Publick School Education : “ . Wa. A. WALKER. 
4. On Studying the English Language : . Goo.tp Brown. 
6. Power of Death . ; WILLIAM CRAFTS, 
7. ‘The Missionary Preacher. W. GitmMorRE Sims. 
9 Character of the Irish Patriots of 1798. . S. D. Lanerree. 
10. Speech in the U. States Senate . : . M. Van Buren. 
ll. Education. ; : : : Dr. Heman HumpuHrey. 
12. Industry ; * “ : Witiiam LEeGcerttr. 
13. Liberal Education . . - r s . LEGARE. 
15. Traits of Indian Character . ’ ; ‘ . - IRVING. 
16. The Grave a Place of Rest ~. : . Mackenzie. 
18. Herculaneum and Pompeii . . , é ‘ . Kotzebue. 
19. On Modesty . ‘ F . . . Spectator. 
20. The White Bear A PERCIVAL. 
21. Extent of Country not Dangerous to the Union . Mapison, 
22. Decisive Integrity 3 " * Wire, 
24. Wild Horses : ; ‘ ; : : «pues 
25. Chanty to Orphans, A ‘ . : ; Sterne. 
26. A Slide in the White Mountains 5 ; . Mrs. Hate. 
27. On Calumny é 3 = : : Brown. 
28. Descent into the Dolgoath Mine . ¢ x , . SILLIMAN. 
30. Address of.the President to Lafayette ‘ .. TaAQeaAnpans: 
31. Reply to the foregoing Address . . Lafayette, 
32. Extract from an Oration delivered at Boston P. O. Tuacuer. 
34. Physical and Moral Greatness of America P «WP hillipe. 
35. Feelings Excited by a Long Voyage ec LR VIN. 
36. Governments of Will and Governments of Law . WAYLAND. 
37. The Gamester . : : 4 Godwin. 
39. The Indian Summer of New England ; FREEMAN. 
40. Character of the Puritan Fathers of New England GREENWOOD. 
41. The Influence of Woman ; ‘ . Rocuester Gem. 
42. Duty of Educating the Poor . : , . GREENWOOD. 
43. Last Days of Herculaneum. ’ : .  Scrap-Boox. 
45. Advice to the Young CHANNING. 
46. Extract from a Speech on the Trial of Aaron Burr Winrr. 
47. Education in Prussia : .  RecHestTER Gem. 
49. Examples of Decision of Character . ; John Foster. 
50. Extract from an Oration delivered Boston, July 4, 1787 T. Dawes. ¢ 
52. Moral Effects of Intemperance ; : . WAYLAND. 
53. Death of King Philip ; IRVING. 
54. Speech of the Scythian Ambassador to Alexander . Q. Curtius. 
56. Account of the Plague in London . , . Galt. 
57. Washington’s Head-Quarters . ‘ GULIAN C. VERPLANCK. 
58. The Same Concluded ; do. do. do. 
59. On the Pleasure of Acquiring Knowledge F . . Alison. 
60. Scene nearly two Centuries ago on the River Hudson Irvine. 
61. Impressions from the Study of History . G. C. VERPLANCK. 
63. On the relative Value of Good Sense and Beauty Lit. Gazette. 
64. Little Things Destroy Character . . . OD. G. Spracun. 


CONTENTS. 


[The names of American Authors are printed in small capitals.] 


Page 
11 
20 


Vill CONTENTS. 


Lesson Page 
65. Mont Blanc in the Gleam of Sunset : . GRiscom. 159 
67. The Debt due to the Soldiers of the Revolution PeLec Spracvue. 162 
68. The Escape : ; . 4 Miss Sepewick. 165 
69. Pursuit of Knowledge Lacon. 170 
71. Extract from a Discourse at Schenectady De Wirr Ciinton. 172 
72. Instability of Earthly Things . ‘ Hervey. 174 
73. Intellectual and Moral Education of the People WavLanp. 175 
74. Proper Selection of Objects of Pursuit. Abercrombie. 178 


75. Passage of the Potomack through the Blue Ridge JEFFERSON. 179 


76. Industry of Demosthenes 
78. . Advantages of a Taste for the Beauties of Nature . ’ Perciva AL. 184 


ces Courage. of a People their Great Strength RoBerT 'G. Harper. 185 


80. Studies of Nature. ‘ ‘ Mudie. 187 
81. Colloquial Powers of Dr. Franklin . § Wirt. 190 
82. Self-respect : ‘ .  Rocurster Gem. 191 
83. Admirable Structure of the Mole. ; ‘ , . Paley. 192 
84. Address to the Columbian Convention. - - Bourivar. 194 
86. . Emigrant’s Abode in Ohio ‘ : : : ; FLINT. 197 
87. Forest Trees. : : : Irvine. 198 
88. The Moral Effects of Intemperance ° : . BEECHER. 201 
89. Right of Free Discussion ; : i 3 . WEBSTER. 202 
90. On the Waste of Life ; é : . FRANKLIN. 203 
92. Extract from his Inangural Address _ , ‘ JEFFERSON. 208 
93. Niagara River and Falls. : FLINT. 210 
95, Discontent, the Common Lot of all Mankind . . Rambler. 213 
97. Biographical Sketch of Major Andre : : 216 
98. Chinese Prisoner : | Percrvat. 219 
99. The Commemoration of the Landing of the Pilgrims WEBSTER. 220 
100. Reception of Columbus on his Return to Spain : IRVING. 222 
102. Supply of Water in Constantinople . Dr. De Kay. 226 
103.. The Obligations of America to Lafayette ; ‘ Hayne. 229 
104. The Elevated Character of Woman , . CarTER. 230 
105. The Banian Tree. . Polehampton’ s Gallery. 232 
106. The true Object of Erecting National Monuments . Wesster. 234 
108. The Character of Grotius ‘ . Guiian C. VERPLANCK. 236 
109. On the Death of the Princess Charlotte . : Robert Hall. 239 
110. The Wife . : ; . : IRVING. 241 
112. Human Life : : "J. K. Paunprna. 244 
113. Onthe Death of General Hamilton . : y . Dr. Norr. 245 
114. Description of the Queen of France : Burke. 247 
115. TheSeasons . : Monthly Anthology. 248 


116. Extract from an Oration delivered at Cambridge E. Evererrt. 250 
118. The Danger of Altering the Constitution GouvERNEUR Morris. 254 


119. Description of a Palace ina Valley . Dr. Johnson’s Rasselas as. 256 
121. Self-Delusion, a Letter from a Father to his Son A. B. JoHnson. 260 
123. Preface to an Album ji ; . Gubtan C. VERPLANCK. 264 
125. Roscoe. J ; : IRVING. 267 
126. ‘I Pity them” . _ Bapeer’s (N, York, ) “Masse NGER. 27] 


128. Speech before the Senate of the United States R. G. Harper. 275. 
130. On the Varieties of the Human Race . Good’s Book of Nature. 277 
131. Description of the Speedwell Mine in win . SILLIMAN. 278 


132. Against the Invasion of Canada. GaAsTONn. 281 
134. The Necessity and Use of Observing . ” Robert Mudie. 284 
136, American Ancestry . Grorex P. Morris. 287 
137. Eulogy on the Life and Character ¢ of eee . J. Q. ADAMs. 289 
139. Moral Sublimity Illustrated . . Way.anp. 295 
140. Early Genius . Witiiam Leccerr. 298 


142. Reflections on the Death of Adams and ‘Jefferson SERGEANT. 301 


CONTENTS. 
Lesson 
143. Melancholy Decay of the Indians . . Cass. 
145. Extract from an Address to the People of Great Britain Joun Jay. 
147. The Enterprise of Columbus E . BANCROFT. 
148. Purity of the Bible . b : apy as Ganpinen SPRING. 
150. Claims of Greece upon America . : . S. E. Dwient. 
152. Horrours of War ‘ . é : Chalmers. 
154. Influence of Female Character ? - j . ‘THACHER. 
156. Patriotick Speech of Robert Emmet é ¢ 
157. Mount Etna. Z . . . London Enc: clopedia. 
159. True Pride of Ancestry . , EBSTER. 
161. Discourse before the Legislature of Vermont Dr. Winevr Fisk. 
162. Goodness of Providence ‘ F , . J. K. Pau.pine. 
163. Dangerof Bad Habits . ; Priestley. 
165. Extract from an Oration at Washington, 1812 Ricnarp Rusu. 
167. Human Life . ‘ ‘ . Dr. Heman HumpuHrey. 
168. Change is not Reform . : . RANDOLPH. 
170. Ascent of Mount Washington. |  THEoporE DwienutT, JR. 
171. Character of the Rev. John Wesley . Dr. NatHan Banos. 
173. Extract from an Oration delivered jaiy 4; 1828 E. WuHeEaToN. 
174. A Scene in the Catskill Mountains . ‘ G. MELLEN. 
175. Temperance Appeal to Youth : | Austin DICKINSON. 
177. Forest Worship “eee . W. GitmorE Simms. 
178. On the Death of Washington 3 ; Dr. J. M. Mason. 
179. The National Character . P ; ; ’ Hayne. 
181. General Abercrombie’s Expedition ‘ | Wa. L. Stone. 
183. Of the Three Kingdoms of wage: - .  BINGLEy. 
184. Poetry and Musick . 4 : . James W. Simmons. 
186. American Bible Society . , : . Dr. E. D. Grirrin: 
187. History of Nature . . StTerpHen E v.iorr. 
188. The Effects of a Dissolution of the Federal Union Hami.tTon. 
189. Vanity . : Robert Hall, 
190. Pride of Profession . ‘ ‘ | Tueropore S. Fay. 
192. Commendation Serviceable  . ; : . A. B. JoHNson. 
193. Necessity of Education . 5 ‘ : . JupGE Cooper, 
194. On Corruption . . McDuvurrie. 
195. Eulogy on Livingston and Robert Falton De Wirr Cuinron. 
197. Advantages of Rhyme . ; . Tomas S. GRIMKE. 
199. Neglect of German Literature : . Proressor Henry. 
200. Appeal in Behalf of Greece : = .  Hewry Cray. 
201. The Patriotism of Truth , : . W. GitmMoreE Simms. 
202. The Idle Schoolboy . ‘ : ‘ ‘ : “ OHN INMAN. 
203. The Same Concluded. do. do. 
204. Of the Eloquence and Writings of Robt. Hall S. D. LaneTren. 
205. Greek Literature. F LEGARE. 
208. Eddystone Lighthouse . : . Gunran C. VerPLancx. 
209. Claims of the Indians. ; : ‘ . Cou. Drayton. 
210. Government . . STEPHEN E.uiort. 
212. Speech in the Legislature ‘of Virginia ; Parrick HENRY. 
213. Speech in the Senate of the U. States Marvin Van BuREN. 
214. Life of Wyttenbach ‘ : Proressor Norv. 
215. Onthe Declaration of Independence : ‘ : LEGARE. 
216. The Declaration of Independence . : : : 
217. The Constitution of the United States ; 
218. Political Definitions , . Epwarp D. MansFIexp. 
LESSONS ‘IN VERSE, 
5. Battle of Hohenlinden . ; F ‘ Campbell. 
8. 


Rhyme and Reason—an Apologue ~ . G.P. Morris. 
A3 


x CONTENTS. 


Less on 


— 


Page 
14. Indian Names F ¢ Mrs. Sigourney. 47 
17. The Love of Country and of Home ; . « Montgomery. 54 
23. Green River . : . ‘ ; Bryant. 64 
29. The Alps . : : ; » Wiis Gaynorp Ciark. 78 
33. Battle of Warsaw . , ‘ a ; ‘ Campbell. 88 
38. Broken Friendship . ; M . .  Rocuester Gem. 97 
44. Peace and War i 3 : ° ‘ SHELLEY. lil 
48. To the Susquehannah . , "Mrs. Sigourney. 120 
51. The Slanderer A ‘ . . é = Pollok. 127 
55. The Genius of Death k * . ° C < Croly. 135 
62. Night  . ° ; . . . + «+ Montgomery. 152 
66. The Deluge . : ° . . . a Bowles. 160 
70. ToaCloud . : : ° i Bryant. 171 * 
77. On Seeing a Beautiful Boy at Play . o RN dea s. 182 
85. Thanatopsis . . SHAS ‘ Bryant. 195 
91. The Ocean—the Last Day ; : Pollok. 205 
94. Musick of the Ocean . | Watsu’s Nationa, Gazerre. 212 
96. ‘To one Bereft . ‘ : . ° + MELLEN. 216 
101. The Power of Musick . ; ees ; . PrIeRPONT. 225 
107. The Baptism . : ; : ; .°N. P. Writs. 235 
111. Invocation 4 “ ‘ iH : » Ropert C. Sanps. 242 
117. The Rivulet . . Fe ‘ : : ‘ : BRYANT. 252 
120. The Miser ; : ° i - ° ‘ Pollok. 259 
122. The Grave of Korner ‘ : ‘ Mrs. Hemans. 262 
124. Winter . "Mrs. SicourNEY. 266 
127. The First Emigrants going down the Ohio . J. K. Pau.pine. 272 
129. Lines to a Young Mother ; ; . _ SPRAGUE. 276 
133. Northern Spring. “ ; ‘ Mrs. Hemans. 283 
135. Thunder-storm among the Alps ‘ : . . Byron, 285 
138. Parrhasius ‘ ' . : : | N. P. Wits. 293 
141. Graves of the Patriots ; : ‘ ; ‘ . PERcCIVAL. 300 * 
144. Conscious Guilt ‘ . J. K. Paunpine. 306 
a Written “ete the Hudson Highlands oe ki ie, Ghul sg MOBR Is. 308 
49. Bums < ‘ ats GadtALLMeR. StS 
153. Apologue SamMuEL WoopwortTn. 324 
155. Monument to the Mother of Washington Mrs. Sigourney. 329 
158. To Seneca Lake . ; ; . PeErcivau. 340 
160. August. , < ° : ‘ 3 Bryant. 343 
164. The Bible ‘ : | Witxiam Leecerr. 351 
169. The Burial of Sir John Moore F ; ; . Wolfe. 360 
172. Weehawken . ; . F. G. Hatxeck. 366 - 
176. Stanzas; ‘I am not “what I have been” 7 . Miss C. Emeury. 372 
180. The Bucket 7 ‘ d . ‘ SamuEL WoopworrTn. 380 
185. Autum ° " Mrs. Sigourney. 397 
191. Bhesunedon of the Falling Stars ; . W. Gitmore Simms. 406 
196. My Country . P ‘ . J. K. PauLpine. 414 
207. Twilight . . BN aaa : . KNICKERBOCKER. 437 
211. The Albatross . Ler : » SamugL Daty LANGTREE. 443 
fd Aedes 
151. William Tell . ; : : : Knowles. 318 
166. Rollaand Alonzo . : Kotzebue. 354 
182. Dialogue between Charles II. and Wm. Penn Frrenp oF PEACE. 387 
198, Tent Scene between Brutus and Cassius : . WShakspeare. 416 
206. Alexander the Great anda Robber . F : . Dr. Aiken. 435 
APPENI ‘IX. 
Variable Orthography ; Concise Principles of Pronunciation, &c. - 433 


INTRODUCTION, 


OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD READING. 


Tus art of reading with propriety, and speaking gracefully, is a matter 
of so much utility and importance to man, in the various departments of 
society, that it is greatly to be regretted so necessary a part of educa- 
tion should be almost totally neglected. That a general inability to read 
and speak with elegance prevails, is fully evinced both from private and 
publick performances. The source from which this incapacity arises, is 
either natural or artificial. 

To read with propriety is a pleasing and important attainment, pro- 
ductive of improvement both to the understanding and the heart. It is 
essential to a complete reader, that he minutely perceive the ideas, and 
enter into the feelings of the author, whose sentiments he professes to 
repeat ; for how is it possible to represent clearly to others, what we 
have but faint or inaccurate conceptions of ourselves? 

That the cause of bad reading and speaking is not natural, will appear 
evident by considering, that there are few persons, if any, who, in pri- 
vate discourse, do not deliver their sentiments with propriety and force, 
whenever they speak in earnest. Here, then, is an unerring standard 
fixed for reading and speaking justly and forcibly ; which is, to adopt the 
same easy and natural mode to read and speak publickly, as we use in 
private conversation. 

This natural mode would certainly be adopted, were we not, in early 
life, taught a different way, with tones and cadences, different from those 
which are used in common conversation; and this artificial method is 
substituted instead of the natural one, in all performances at school, as 
well as in reading. ‘To correct, in some degree, this artificial manner, 
it will be necessary to unfold the real sources of our errours and faults 
in the art of reading; partly arising from the ignorance of instructers, 
and partly from defects and imperfections in the very art of writing itself. 

The principal objects to be attained by reading are three: 1. To ac- 
quire knowledge. 2. To assist the memory to retain this knowledge, 
when acquired ; and, 3. To communicate it to others. The first two 
are answered by silent reading ; but to communicate knowledge to others, 
loud reading is necessary. ‘The structure of written language has been 
sufficiently regarded to answer the ends of acquiring knowledge and as- 
sisting the memory ; but this written language is by no means calculated 
to answer the ends of reading aloud, as it contains no visible marks, or 
articles, which are essential to a just delivery. 

Had the art of writing a sufficient number of marks and signs, to point 
out the variety of tones and cadences, the art of reading with propriety 
at sight, might be rendered as easy and as certain, as singing at sight. 
But as the art of writing will probably never admit such a change, it is 
essential to point out how the art of reading may be improved, while that 
of writing continues in its present state. 


xu INTRODUCTION. 


The general sources of that impropriety and badness of reading, which 
so generally prevail, are the unskilfulness of masters, who teach rudi 
ments of reading ; the erroneous manner which the young scholar adopts, 
through the negligence of the master in not correcting small faults at 
first ; bad habits gained by imitating particular persons, in a certain tone 
or chant in reading, which is regularly transmitted from one class to an- 
other. It often happens, that reading is made too mechanical. If the 
words be properly pronounced, and attention be paid to the stops, and the 
parts of the sentence put together with tolerable propriety, the teacher 
rests satisfied, though the understanding has been wholly unemployed. 
Besides these, there is one fundamental errour in the common method 
of teaching children to read, which gives a wrong bias, and leads the pu- 
pil ever after blindfold from the right path, under the guidance of false 
rules. 

Instead of supplying by oral instruction and habit, any deficiency of 
errour, which may be in the art of writing, with respect to the pauses, 
and the rests of the voice, masters are negligent in perfecting their pupils 
in the nght use of them, and, in their mode of instruction, have laid 
down false rules, by the government of which, it is impossible to read 
naturally. 

The art of pointing, in its present state, has reference to nothing but 
the grammatical construction of sentences, or to the different proportion 
of pauses in point of time; through want of others, however, masters 
haye used the stops as marks of tones also. That they cannot answer 
this end is certain, for the tones preceding pauses and rests in discourse, 
are numerous and various, according to the sense of the words, the emo- 
tions of the mind, or the exertions of fancy; each of which would re- 
quire a distinct, and cannot be represented by so small a number as four 
or five, which are used as stops. The masters have given what they call 
proper tones to their pupils in reading, by annexing artificial tones to the 
stops, which no way correspond to those which are used in discourse. 
The comma, semicolon, and colon, are pronounced in the same tone ; 
and only differ in point of time, as two or three to-one ; while the period 
is marked by a different tone. ‘The one consists in a uniform elevation, 
and the other in as uniform depression of the voice, which occasions that 
disagreeable monotony, which so generally prevails in reading, and which 
destroys all propriety and force in speaking. 

Here, then, is the chief source of that unnatural manner of reading, 
which necessarily defeats all elegance and gracefulness in private and 
publick reading and speaking, for the sight of the stops as naturally ex- 
cites the tones which the pupil was early taught to associate with them, 
as the sight of the words excites their pronunciation ; and thus the habit 
of reading will only serve to confirm him in the faulty manner which he 
has acquired. 

To give rules for the management of the voice in reading, by which 
the necessary pauses, emphasis, and tones, may be discovered and put 
in practice, is not possible. After all the directions that can be offered 
on these points, much will remain to be taught by the living instructer : 
much will be attainable by no other means than the force of example in- 
fluencing the imitative powers of the learner. Some rules and principles 
on these heads will, however, be found useful, to prevent erroneous and 


INTRODUCTION. Xi 


vicious modes of utterance; to give the young reader some taste df the 
subject ; and to assist him in acquiring a just and accurate mode of de- 
livery. The observations which we have to make, for these purposes, 
may be comprised under the following heads: PROPER LOUDNESS oF 
VOICE ; DISTINCTNESS ; SLOWNESS ; PROPRIETY OF PRONUNCIATION; EM- 
PHASIS ; TONES ; PAUSES; and MODE OF READING VERSE. 


PROPER LOUDNESS OF VOICE. 


The first attention of every person who reads to others, doubtless, 
must be, to make himself be heard by al] those to whom he reads. He 
must endeavour to fill with his voice the space occupied by the company. 
This power of voice, it may be thought, is wholly a natural talent. It 
is, in a great measure, the gift of nature; but it may receive considera- 
ble assistance from art. Much depends, for this purpose, on the proper 
pitch and management of the voice. Every person has three pitches in 
his voice; the H1eH, the mMippLE, and the Low one. ‘The high, is that 
which he uses in calling aloud to some person at a distance. The low 
is, when he approaches to a whisper. ‘The middle is, that which he em- 
ploys in common conversation, and which he should generally use in 
reading to others. For it is a great mistake to imagine that one must 
take the highest pitch of his voice, in order to be well heard in a large 
company. ‘This is confounding two things which are different, loudness 
or strength of sound with the key or note on which we speak. ‘There is 
a variety of sound within the compass of each key. A speaker may 
therefore render his voice louder, without altering the key: and we shall 
always be able to give most body, most persevering force of sound, to 
that pitch of voice, to which, m conversation, we are accustomed. 
Whereas, by setting out on our highest pitch or key, we certainly allow 
ourselves less compass, and are likely to strain our voice before we have 
done. We shall fatigue ourselves, and read with pain; and whenever a 
person speaks with pain to himself, he is always heard with pain by his 
audience. Let us therefore give the voice full strength and swell of 
sound; but always pitch it on our ordinary speaking key. It should be 
a constant rule never to utter a greater quantity of voice than we can 
afford without pain to ourselves, and without any extraordinary effort. 
As long as we keep within these bounds, the other organs of speech will 
be at liberty to discharge their several offices with ease ; and we shall 
always have our voice under command. But whenever we transgress 
these bounds, we give up the reins, and have no longer any management 
of it. It is a useful rule, too, in order to be well heard, to cast our eye 
on some of the most distant persons in the company, and to consider our- 
selves as reading to them. We naturally and mechanically utter our 
words with such a degree of strength, as to make ourselves be heard by 
the person whom we address, provided he is within the reach of our 
voice. As this is the case in conversation, it will hold also in reading to 
others. But let us remember, that in reading, as well as in conversa- 
tion, it is possible to offend by speaking too loud. ‘This extreme hurts 
the ear, by making the voice come upon it in rumbling, indistinct masses. 

By the habit of reading, when young, in a loud and vehement man- 
ner, the voice becomes fixed in a strained and unnatural key ; and is ren- 


X1V INTRODUCTION. 


dered incapable of that variety of elevation and depression which consti- 
tutes the true harmony of utterance, and affords ease to the reader, and 
pleasure to the audience. ‘This unnatural pitch of the voice, and disa- 
greeable monotony, are most observable in persons who are taught to 
read in large rooms ; who were accustomed to stand at too great a dis- 
tance, when reading to their teachers ; whose instructers were very im- 
perfect in their hearing ; or who were taught by persons that considered 
loud expression as the chief requisite in forming a good reader. ‘These 
are circumstances which demand the serious attention of every one to 
whom the education of youth is committed. 


DISTINCTNESS. 


In the next place, to being well heard and clearly understood, distinct- 
ness of articulation contributes more than mere loudness of sound. The 
quantity of sound necessary to fill even a large space, is smaller than is 
commonly imagined ; and, with distinct articulation, a person with a weak 
voice will make it reach farther, than the strongest voice can reach with- 
out it. To this, therefore, every reader ought to pay great attention. 
He must give every sound which he utters, its due proportion ; and make 
every syllable, and even every letter in the word which he pronounces, - 
be heard distinctly ; without slurring, whispering, or suppressing any of 
the proper sounds. 

An accurate knowledge of the simple, elementary sounds of the lan- 
guage, and a facility in expressing them, are so necessary to distinctness 
of expression, that if the learner’s attainments are, in this respect, im- 
perfect (and many there are in this situation), it will be incumbent on 
his teacher to carry him back to these primary articulations, and to sus- 
pend his progress till he become perfectly master of them. It will be in 
vain to press him forward, with the hope of forming a good reader, if he 
cannot completely articulate every elementary sound of the language. 


DUE DEGREE OF SLOWNESS. 


In order to express ourselves distinctly, moderation is requisite with 
regard to the speed of pronouncing. Precipitancy of speech confounds 
all articulation, and all meaning. It is scarcely necessary to observe, that 
there may be also an extreme on the opposite side. It is obvious that a 
lifeless, drawling manner of reading, which allows the minds of the 
hearers to be always outrunning the speaker, must render every such 
performance insipid and fatiguing. But the extreme of reading too fast 
1s much more common, and requires the more to be guarded against, be- 
cause, when it has grown into a habit, few errours are more difficult to 
be corrected. ‘To pronounce with a proper degree of slowness, and with 
full and clear articulation, is necessary to be studied by all who wish to 
become good readers ; and it cannot be too much recommended to them. 
Such a pronanciation gives weight and dignity to the subject. It is a 
great assistance to the voice, by the pauses and rests which it allows the 
reader more easily to make; and it enables the reader to swell all his 
sounds, both with more force and more harmony. 


PROPRIETY OF PRONUNCIATION. 


After the fundamental attentions to the pitch and management of the 
voice, to distinct articulation, and to a proper degree of slowness of 


INTRODUCTION. XV. 


speech, what the young reader must, in the next place, study, is propri- 
ety of pronunciation; or, giving to every word which he utters, that 
sound which the best usage of the language appropriates to it, in oppo- 
sition to broad, vulgar, affected, or provincial pronunciation. This is 
requisite both for reading intelligibly, and for reading with correctness 
and ease. Instructions concerning this article may be best given by the 
teacher. But there is one observation, which it may not be improper 
here to make. In the English language, every word which consists of 
more syllables than one, has one accented syllable. The accents rest 
sometimes on the vowel, sometimes on the consonant. The genius of 
the language requires the voice to mark that syllable by a stronger per- 
cussion, and to pass more slightly over the rest. Now, after we have 
learned the proper seats of these accents, it is an important rule, to give 
every word just the same accent in reading as in common discourse. 
Many persons err in this respect. When they read to others, and with 
solemnity, they pronounce the syllables in a different manner from what 
they do at other times. They dwell upon them and protract them ; they 
multiply accents on the same word ; from a mistaken notion, that it gives 
gravity and importance to their subject, and adds to the energy of their 
delivery. Whereas this is one of the greatest faults that can be com- 
mitted in pronunciation : it makes what is called a pompous or mouthing 
manner; and gives an artificial, affected air to reading, which detracts 
greatly both from its agreeableness and its impression. 

Sheridan and Walker have published dictionaries, for ascertaining the 
true and best pronunciation of the words of our language. By atten- 
tively consulting them, particularly ‘‘ Walker’s Critical Pronouncing 
Dictionary,” the young reader will be much assisted in his endeavours to 
attain a correct pronunciation of the words belonging to the English 
language. 


EMPHASIS, 


By emphasis is meant a full and stronger sound of voice, by which we 
distinguish some word or words, on which we design to lay particular 
stress, and to show how they affect the rest of the sentence. Some- 
times the emphatick words must be distinguished by a particular tone of 
voice, as well as by a particular stress. On the right management of 
the emphasis depends the life of pronunciation. If no emphasis be 
placed on any words, not only is discourse rendered heavy and lifeless, 
but the meaning left often ambiguous. If the emphasis be placed wrong, 
we pervert and confound the meaning wholly. 

Emphasis may be divided into the supERiouR and the INFERIOUR em- 
phasis. The superiour emphasis determines the meaning of a sentence, 
with reference to something said before, presupposed by the author as 
general knowledge, or removes an ambiguity, where a passage may have 
more senses than one. The inferiour emphasis enforces, graces, and 
enlivens, but does not fix, the meaning of any passage. The words to 
which this latter emphasis is given, are, in general, such as seem the most 
important in the sentence, or, on other accounts, to merit this distinc- 
Va. The following passage will serve to exemplify the superiour em 
phasis : 


Xvi INTRODUCTION. 


‘Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste . 
Brought death into the world, and all our wo,” &c. 
“‘ Sing heavenly muse !” 


Supposing that originally other beings, besides men, had disobeyed the 
commands of the Almighty, and that the circumstance were well known 
to us, there would fall an emphasis upon the word man’s in the first line ; 
and hence it would read thus : 


‘“‘ Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit,”’ &c. 


But if it were a notorious truth, that mankind had transgressed in a 
peculiar manner more than once, the emphasis would fall on first ; and 
the line be read, 


«‘ Of man’s first disobedience,” &c. 


Again, admitting’ death (as was really the case) to have been an un- 
heard-of and dreadful punishment, brought upon man in consequence of 
his transgression; on that supposition, the third line would be read, 


‘“‘ Brought death into the world,” &c. 


But if we were to suppose that mankind knew there was such an evil 
as death in other regions, though the place they inhabited had been free - 
from it till their transgression, the line would run thus: 


‘‘ Brought death into the world,” &c. 


The superiour emphasis finds place in the following short sentence, 
which admits of four distinct meanings, each of which is ascertained by 
the emphasis only: . 


**Do you ride to town to-day ?” 


The superiour emphasis, in reading as in speaking, must be determined 
entirely by the sense of the passage, and always made alike; but as to 
the inferiour emphasis, taste alone seems to have the right of fixing its 
situation and quantity. 

Among the number of persons who have had proper opportunities of 
learning to read, in the best manner it is now taught, very few could be 
selected, who, in a given instance, would use the inferiour emphasis 
alike, either as to place or quantity. 

As emphasis often falls on words in different parts of the same sen- 
tence, so it is frequently required to be continued with a little variation, 
on two, and sometimes more words together. The following sentences 
exemplify both the parts of this position: ‘‘If you seek to make one 
rich, Study not to increase his stores, but to diminish his desires.” ‘The 
Mexican figures, or picture writing, represent things, not words: they 
exhibit images to the eye, not ideas to the understanding.” 

Some sentences are so full and comprehensive, that almost every word 
is emphatical: as, ‘‘ Ye hills and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains !” 
or, as that pathetick expostulation in the prophecy of Ezekiel, ‘“* Why 
will ye die !” 

Emphasis, besides its other offices, is the great regulator of quantity. 
Though the quantity of our syllables is fixed, in words separately pros 
nounced, yet it is mutable, when these words are arranged in sentences ° 


INTRODUCTION. XVii 


the long being changed into short, the short into long, according to the 
importance of the word with regard to meaning. Emphasis also, in par- 
ticular cases, alters the seat of the accent. This is demonstrable from 
the following examples. ‘ He shall increase, but I shall decrease.” 
‘‘ There is a difference between giving and forgiving.” ‘‘ In this spe- 
cies of composition, plausibility is much more essential than probability.” 
In these examples, the emphasis requires the accent to be placed on syl- 
lables, to which it does not commonly belong. 

In order to acquire a proper management of the emphasis, the great 
rule to be.given, is, that the reader study to attain a just conception of 
the force and spirit of the sentiments which he is to pronounce. For to 
lay the emphasis with exact propriety, is a constant exercise of good 
sense and attention. It is far from being an inconsiderable attainment. 
It is one of the most decisive trials of a true and just taste; and must 
arise from feeling delicately ourselves, and from judging accurately of 
what is fittest to strike the feelings of others. 

There is one errour, against which it is particularly proper to caution 
the learner, namely ; that of multiplying emphatical words too much, and 
using the emphasis indiscriminately. It is only by a prudent reserve and 
distinction in the use of them, that we can give them any weight. If 
. they recur too often; if a reader attempts to render every thing he ex 
presses of high importance, by a multitude of strong emphases, we soon 
learn to pay little regard to them. To crowd every sentence with em- 
phatical words, is like crowding all the pages of a book with Italick char- 
acters, which, as to the effect, is just the same as to use no such distinc- 
tions at all. ° 


TONES. 


Tones are different both from emphasis and pauses ; consisting in the 
notes or variations of sound which we employ in the expression of our 
sentiments. Emphasis affects particular words and phrases, with a de- 
gree of tone or inflection of voice ; but tones, peculiarly so called, affect 
sentences, paragraphs, and sometimes even the whole of a discourse. 

To show the use and necessity of tones, we need only observe, that 
the mind, in communicating its ideas, is in a constant state of activity, 
emotion, or agitation, from the different effects which those ideas pro- 
duce in the speaker. 

The limits of this introduction do not admit of examples to illustrate 
the variety of tones belonging to the different passions and emotions. 
We shall, however, select one, which is extracted from the beautiful 
lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan, and which will, in some 
degree, elucidate what has been said on this subject. ‘The beauty of 
Israel is slain upon the high places ; how are the mighty fallen! Tell 
it not in Gath ; publish it not in the streets of Askelon ; lest the daugh- 
ters of the Philistines rejoice ; lest the daughters of the uncircumcised 
triumph. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon 
you, or fields of offerings ; for there the shield of the mighty was vilely 
cast away ; the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with 
oil.” The first of these divisions expresses sorrow and lamentation : 
therefore the note is low. The next contains a spirited command, and 
should be pronounced much higher. The other sentence, in which he 


KVill INTRODUCTION. 


makes a pathetick address to the mountains where his friends had been 
slain, must be expressed in a note quite different from the former two ; 
not as low as the first, or as high as the second, in a manly, firm, and yet 
plaintive tone. 

But when we recommend to readers an attention to the tone and lan- 
guage of emotions, we must be understood to do it with proper limitation. 
Moderation is necessary in this point, as itis in other things. For when 
reading becomes strictly imitative, it assumes a theatrical manner, and 
must be highly improper, as well as give offence to the hearers ; because 
it is inconsistent with that delicacy and modesty which are indispensable 
on such occasions. The speaker who delivers his own emotions must 
be supposed to be more vivid and animated, than would be proper in the 
person who relates them at second hand. 

We shall conclude with the following rule, for the tones that indicate 
the passions and emotions. ‘In reading, let all your tones of expres- 
sion be borrowed from those of common speech, but, in some degree, 
more faintly characterized. Let those tones which signify any disa- 
greeable passion of the mind, be still more faint than those which indi- 
cate agreeable emotions; and, on all occasions, preserve yourselves 
from being so far affected with the subject, as to be able to proceed 
through it, with that easy and masterly manner, which has its good ef- 
fects in this, as well as im every other art.” 


‘ PAUSES OR STOPS. 


Pauses or rests, in speaking or reading, are a total cessation of the 
voice, during a perceptible, and, in many cases, a measurable space of 
time. Pauses are equally necessary to the speaker and the hearer. To 
the speaker, that he may take breath, without which he cannot proceed 
far in delivery ; and that he may, by these temporary rests, relieve the 
organs of speech, which otherwise would be soon tired by continued ac- 
tion: to the hearer, that the ear also may be relieved from the fatigue, 
which it would otherwise endure from a continuity of sound; and that 
the understanding may have sufficient time to mark the distinction of 
sentences, and their several members. 

There are two kinds of pauses; first, emphatical pauses, and next, 
such as mark the distinction of the sense. An emphatical pause is 
made, after something has been said of great importance, and on which 
the speaker desires to fix the hearer’s attention. Such pauses have the 
same effect as a strong emphasis, and are subject to the same rules, 
especially that of not using them too frequently. 

But the most frequent and the principal use of pauses, is to mark the 
divisions of the sense, and at the same time to allow the reader to draw 
his breath ; and the proper and delicate adjustment of such pauses js one 
of the most nice and difficult articles of delivery.» In all reading, the 
management of the breath requires a great deal of care, so as not to 
oblige us to divide words from each other, which have so intimate a con- 
nexion, that they ought to be pronounced with the same breath, and with- 
out the least separation. 

Pauses in reading and publick speaking, must be governed by the same 
manner in which we utter ourselves in ordinary, sensible conversation, 
and not upon the stiff, artificial manner, which we acquire from reading 


INTRODUCTION. xix 


books according to the common punctuation. The points in printing are 
far from marking all the pauses which ought to be used in speaking’ A 
formai attention to those resting places, has been the cause of a tedious 
monotony, by leading the reader to a similar tone at every stop, and a 
uniform cadence at every period. 

To render pauses pleasing and expressive, they must not only be used 
in the right place, but also accompanied with a proper tone of voice, by 
which the nature of these pauses is intimated. Sometimes it is only a 
slight and siinple suspension of voice that is proper ; sometimes a degree 
of cadence in the voice is required ; and sometimes that peculiar tone and 
cadence, which denote the sentence to be finished. In all these cases, 
we are to regulate ourselves, by attending to the same manner, in which 
nature teaches us to speak, when engaged in real and earnest discourse 
with others. . 

It is a general rule, that the suspending pause should be used when the 
sense 1s Incomplete ; and the closing one, when it is finished. But there 
are phrases, in which, although the sense is not completed, the voice 
takes the closing, rather than the suspending pause ; and others, in which 
the sentence finishes by the pause of suspension. 

Nothing is more destructive to energy and propriety than the habit of 
confounding the closing pause, with that fall of the voice, or cadence, 
with which many readers uniformly finish a sentence. ‘The tones and 
inflections of the voice, at the close ofa sentence, should be varied ac- 
cording to the general nature of the discourse, and the particular construc- 
tion and meaning of the sentence. In plain narrative and argumentation, 
attention to the manner in which we relate a fact, or maintain an argu- 
ment, in conversation, will show, that it is frequently more proper to raise 
the voice than to fall it, at the end of a sentence: 

In pathetick pieces, especially those of the plaintive, tender, or solemn 
kind, the tone of the passion will often require a still greater cadence of 
the voice. ‘The best method of correcting a uniform cadence, is fre- 
quently to read select sentences, in which antitheses are introduced, and 
argumentative pieces, or such as abound with interrogatives, or earnest 
exclamations. 


MANNER OF READING VERSE. 


When we are reading verse, there is a peculiar difficulty in making 
the pauses justly. The difficulty arises from the melody of verse, which 
dictates to the ear pauses or rests of its own: and to adjust and com- 
pound these properly with the pauses of the sense, so as neither to hurt 
the ear, nor offend the understanding, 1s so very nice a matter, that it is 
no wonder we so seldom meet with good readers of poetry. There are 
two kinds of pauses that belong to the melody of verse: one is, the 
pause at the end of the line; and the other, the caesural pause in or 
near the middle of it. With regard to the pause at the end of the line, 
which marks that strain or verse to be finished, rhyme renders this always 
sensible, and in some measure compels us to observe it in our pronuncia- 
tion. In respect to blank verse, we ought also to read it so as to make 
every line sensible to the ear: for, what is the use of melody, or for what 
end has the poet composed in verse, if, in reading his lines, we suppress 
his numbers, by omitting the final pause, and degrade them, by our pro- 


XX INTRODUCTION. 


nunciation, into mere prose?’ At the same time that we attend to this 
pause, every appearance of sing-song and tone must be carefully guarded 
against. ‘The close of the line, where it makes no pause in the meaning, 
ought not to be marked by such a tone as is used in finishing a sentence ; 
but, without either fall or elevation of the voice, it should be denoted 
only by so slight a suspension of sound, as may distinguish the passage 
from one line to another, without injurmg the meaning. 

I shall close these rules and observations, by a remark of consider- 
able importance to young persons who are desirous of learning to read 
well. Few rules on this subject are intelligible to children, unless illus- 
trated by the voice of a competent instructer. ‘They should, therefore, 
pay great attention to the manner in which their teacher, and other per- 
sons of approved skill, perform the business of reading. ‘They should 
observe their mode of pronouncing the words, placing the emphasis, 
making the pauses, managing the voice, and adapting it to the various 
subjects they read; and, in all these respects, endeavour to imitate them 
as nearly as possible. 


THE STOPS OR POINTS, AND OTHER CHARACTERS USED IN WRITING 
AND PRINTING. 


The use of punctuation is designed, first, to assist the reader to dis 
cern the grammatical construction, and next, to regulate his pronuncia- 
tion. ‘The several stops, as they are used in writing and printing, shall 
be mentioned, with particular reference, however, to the preceding ob- 
servations on the pauses or stops. 

A comma [, ] denoting, especially in long sentences, a little elevation 
of the voice, is the shortest pause, at which the reader’s voice should 
stop the time of pronouncing one syllable. 

A sEmIcoLon [;] denoting, for the most part, an evenness of the 
voice, at which the reader’s voice should stop the time of pronouncing 
two syllables. 

A coon [:] marks a little depression of the voice, at which the 
reader’s voice should stop the time of pronouncing four syllables. 

A PERIoD [. ] isa full stop, denoting a greater depression of the voice 
than the colon, at which the reader’s voice should stop the time of pro- 
nouncing six syllables. 

A note of INTERROGATION [17] shows that a question is asked, and 
the end of the sentence preceding it should be read with a raised or ele- 
vated tone of voice, except when a question is asked, by who, which, what, 
how, why, when, where, wherefore, which sentences should be read with 
a depression of the voice at the end of them. 

A note of ExcLamaTion [!] is a mark of wonder, surprise, or admi- 
ration. .'The reader’s voice should stop as long at a note of exclamation 
and interrogation as at a colon. 

A HYPHEN [-] is used in connecting compound words ; and, it is used 
when a word is divided, and the former part of the word is written at the 
end of one line, and the latter part of it at the beginning of another. In 
this case, it should always be placed at the end of the first line. 


INTRODUCTION. XXl 


The best and easiest rule for dividing the syllables in spelling, is to 
divide them as they are naturally divided in a right pronunciation. 

A PaRENTHEsIs [ () ] includes something explanatory, which, if omit- 
ted, would not obscure the sense. ‘The words included in a parenthesis, 
should be read with a weaker tone of voice than the rest of the sentence. 

An APOSTROPHE [’ ] is used to show the possessive case, as, a man’s 
property. It is likewise used to show that some letter or letters are 
omitted, as, lov’d for loved, ’tis for it is, &c. 

An ASTERISK [*], oBELISK [t+], PARALLELS [||], and many other 
marks, are used to direct the reader to some note or remark in the mar- 
gin, or at the bottom of a page. 

A caRET [4] is used in writing to show that some letter or word has 
been omitted through mistake. In this case, the letter or word should 

n 
be inserted above the line, and the caret under it; thus, maner; I loved 
her - 
her for modesty and virtue. 
A 

A quotation [ “”’ ] is two inverted commas, placed at the beginning 
of a passage, which is quoted from some other author, and two apos- 
trophes, placed at the conclusion of it; as, ‘ The proper study of man- 
kind 1s man.” 

A srction [ § ] is used to divide a discourse or chapter into less parts. 


An INDEX or HAND [ IL-7 ] points out a remarkable passage, or some- 
thing that requires particular attention. 

A PARAGRAPH { J ] denotes the beginning of a new subject. 

The crotcuets [ ] include a word or sentence which is intended to 
exemplify the foregoing sentence ; or which is intended to supply some 
deficiency, or rectify some mistake. 

An ELLIpsis [— ] is used when some letters in a word are omitted ; 
as, kK—g for king: it is also used to denote an uncertain pause only ; 
then it is called a dash. 


A BRACE [ ; ] is used to connect several lines or words together. 


A pIaEREsIs [-- ] is put over the latter of two vowels, to show that 
they belong to two distinct syllables ; thus, Creator. 

A CAPITAL LETTER should begin the first word of every book, chapter, 
letter, note, or any other piece in writing; the first word after a period ; 
the appellations of the Deity, as Lord, Jehovah, God, Messiah, proper 
names of persons, places, mountains, rivers, ships, &c.,as George, York, 
. Alps, &c.; every line in poetry ; the pronoun I, and the interjection O ; 
every substantive and principal word in the titles of books, as Walker’s 
Dictionary of the English Language. 


INTRODUCTION. 


Note To Tracnuers. Every teacher is respectfully re- 
quested to require each of his pupils thoroughly to read all 
the preceding “* OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD 
ReaDIneG,” and to commit to memory the Rules for the right 
use of the “Srops, or PoINTs, AND OTHER CHARACTERS 
USED IN WriTING AND PRINTING.” 

In order to test the knowledge of each scholar, it may be 
well frequently to exercise him, by requiring him to answer 
the following or similar 


QUESTIONS. 


What is the use of a Comma? 

What is the use of a Semicolon ? 

What is the use of a Colon? 

What is the use of a Period ? } 

What is the use of a note of Interrogation? 
What is the use of a note of Exclamation? 
What is the use of a Hyphent? 

What is the use of a Parenthesis1? 

What is the use of an Apostrophe ? 

What is the use of an Asterisk, Obelisk, &c. ? 
What is the use of a Caret? 

What is a Quotation? 

What is the use of a Section? 

What is the use of an Index? 

What is the use of a Paragraph ? 

What is the use of the Crotchets ? 

What is the use of an Ellipsis? 

What is the use of a Brace? 

What is the use of a Diaeresis ? 

What words should begin with a Capital Letter in writing and printing 4 


Note To Tracuers. The author of this work has, in 
the Appendix, inserted an extensive list of “ Words of Vari- 
able Orthography,” generally spelled in an incorrect man- 
ner in writing and printing, “ Concise Principles of Pro- 
nunciation,” ‘ Rules for the Division of Words,” “ Rules for 
Spelling the Plurals of Nouns, Participles, Present Tense, 
and Preterit of Verbs, and the Comparative and Superlative 
Degrees of Adjectives.” It is presumed that every teacher 
will pay all the attention to these important particulars which 
they justly merit. See pages 494 and 495 particularly. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON I. 
The Schoolmaster.—Gutian C. VERPLANCK. 


1. Tuere are prouder themes for the eulogist than this. 
The praise of the statesman, the warriour, or the orator, fur- 
nishes more splendid topicks for ambitious eloquence ; but no 
theme can be more rich indessert, or more fruitful in publick 
advantage. 

2. The enlightened liberality of many of our state govern- 
ments (among which we may claima proud distinction for our 
own), by extending the common-school system over their whole 
population, has brought elementary education to the door of 
every family. 

3. In this state, it appears, from the Annual Reports of the 
Secretary of the state, 1829, there are, besides the fifty incor- 
porated academies and numerous private schools, about nine 
thousand school districts, in each of which instruction is regu- 
larly given. These contain at present half a million of chil- 
dren taught in the single state of New York. To these may 
be added nine or ten thousand more youth in the higher sem- 
inaries of learning, exclusive of the colleges. 

4. Of what incalculable influence, then, for good or for 
evil, upon the dearest interests of society, must be the esti- 
mate entertained for the character of this great body of teach- 
ers, and the consequent respectability of the individuals who 
compose it! 

5. At the recent general election in this state, the votes of 
above three hundred thousand persons were taken. In thirty 
years the great majority of these will have passed away ; their 
rights will be exercised, and their duties assumed by those 
very children, whose minds are now open to receive their earli 


24 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


est and most durable impressions from the ten thousand school- 
masters of this state. 

6. What else is there in the whole of our social system of 
such extensive and powerful operation on the national charac- 
ter? There is one other influence more powerful, and but 
one. It is that of the Morner. ‘The forms of a free gov- 
ernment, the provisions of wise legislation, the schemes of 
the statesman, the sacrifices of the patriot, are as nothing com- 
pared with these. 

7. If the future citizens of our republick are to be worthy 
of their rich inheritance, they must be made so principally 
through the virtue and intelligence of their Moruers. | It is 
in the school of maternal tenderness that the kind affections 
must be first roused and made habitual, the early sentiment of 
piety awakened and nghtly directed, the sense of duty and 
moral responsibility unfolded and enlightened. } 

8. But next in rank and in efficacy to that pure and holy 
source of moral influence, is that of the ScuootmasTER. It 
is powerful already. What would it be if in every one of 
those school districts which we now count by annually increas- 
ing thousands, there were to be found one teacher well-in- 
formed without pedantry, religious without bigotry or fanati- 
cism, proud and fond of his profession, and honoured in the 
discharge of its duties? How wide would be the intellectual, 
the moral influence of such a body of men? 

9..Many such we have already among us; men humbly 
wise and obscurely useful, whom poverty can not depress, or 
neglect degrade. But to raise up a body of such men, as 
numerous as the wants and the dignity of the country demand, 
their labours must be fitly remunerated, and» Ragmselys= and 
their calling cherished and honoured. 

10. The schoolmaster’s occupation is sent and un- 
grateful ; its rewards are scanty and precarious. He may in- 
deed be, and he ought to be, animated by the consciousness 
of doing good, that best of all consolations, that noblest of 
all motives. But that too must be often clouded by doubt and 
uncertainty. 

11. Obscure and oalodone as his daily eee may 
appear to learned pride or worldly ambition, yet to be truly 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 25 


successful and happy, he must be animated by the spirit of the 
same great principles which inspired the most illustrious bene- 
factors of mankind. 

12. If he bring to his task high talent and rich acquirement, 
he must be content to look into distant years for the proof that 
his labours have not been wasted ; that the good seed which 
he daily scatters abroad does not fall on stony ground and 
wither away, or among thorns, to be choked by the cares, the 
delusions, or the vices of the world. He must solace his toils 
with the same prophetick faith that enabled the greatest of 
modern philosophers, amidst the neglect or contempt of his 
own times, to regard himself as sowing the seeds of truth for 
posterity and the care of Heaven. 

13. He must arm himself against disappointment and mor- 
tification, with a portion of that same noble confidence which 
soothed the greatest of modern poets when weighed down by 
care and danger, by poverty, old age, and blindness, still 


“*____Tn prophetick dream he saw 
The youth unborn, with pious awe, 
Imbibe each virtue from his sacred page.” 


14. He must know and he must love to teach his pupils, not 
the meager elements of knowledge, but the secret and the use 
of their own intellectual strength, exciting and enabling them 
hereafter to raise for themselves the veil which covers the ma- 
jestick form of Truth. He must feel deeply the reverence 
due to the youthful mind fraught with mighty though unde- 
veloped energies and affections, and mysterious and eternal 
destinies. Thence he must have learned to reverence himself 
and his profession, and to look upon its otherwise ill-requited 
toils as their own exceeding great reward. 

15. If such are the difficulties, and the discouragements ; 
such the duties, the motives, and the consolations of teachers 
who are worthy of that name and trust, how imperious then 
the obligation upon every enlightened citizen who knows and 
feels the value of such men to aid them, to cheer them, and to 
honour them! 

16. But let us not be content with barren honour to buried 


“ Bacon. 


B 


26 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


merit. Let us prove our gratitude to the dead by faithfully’ 
endeavouring to elevate the station, to enlarge the usefulness, 
and to raise the character of the Schoolmaster among us. 
Thus shall we best testify our gratitude to the teachers and 
guides of our own youth, thus best serve our country, and thus 
most effectually diffuse over our land, light, and truth, and 
virtue. 


LESSON II. 
Female Influence.—GanneETT. 


1. WitxovuT touching the question of the relative supe- 
riority of the sexes, we can not doubt that their powers are 
various. ‘The sensibilities and affections are the strength of 
woman’s nature. Feeling is the favourite element of her 
soul. She has an instinctive sympathy with the tender, the 
generous, and the pure. We expect from her examples of 
goodness. Vice appears more unnatural in her than in the 
other sex; it certainly is more odious. Vulgarity seems 
coarser, immorality more inexcusable, impiety more shocking. 

2. A wicked woman expresses the climax of depravity. 
By the law of her nature, moreover, woman is determined tow- 
ards reliance and confidence, rather than towards an inde- 
pendence of foreign support. She is willing to rest on 
another’s arm, she seeks protection, she covets affection. 
We describe hers as the gentler and the feebler sex ; and 
these are not the epithets of poetry, so much as of fact and 
nature. 

3. The influence of the female sex is not confined to their 
homes. No; it is felt through society, felt where they are 
never seen, felt by man in his most busy and stormy hours. 
It would not be easy to exaggerate the amount or importance 
of the influence, which they hold over manners, opinions, and 
customs. I am speaking of a state of society, where that 
piace is given to the sex, of which they have in so many 
countries and for so many ages been defrauded. 

4. The tone of moral sentiment through the land, depends 


4 


; 


NORTH AMERICAN. READER. oF 


upon the women of the land. It will bear the character 
which they consent to have it bear. Neither irreligion nor 
hypocrisy, neither coarse nor polished vice, neither a false 
standard of truth, nor a false standard of honour, can prevail 
if they discountenance it. 

5. Pertness and foppery would be driven by their contempt 
into the darkness, from which they should never have issued. 
Arrogant skepticism and light-tongued faith would be rebuked 
by their frown, while purity of taste, lofty sentiment, intel- 
lectual improvement, moral feeling, and a simple but stead- 
fast piety, would flourish under their patronage, like the flow- 
ers under the mild sunshine of spring. 

6. And let every one, be she in humble or conspicuous 
place, be wealth or toil her portion, have she many or few 
friends, be she admired or passed by in the crowds let her re- 
member that the whole is made up of its parts, that the, in- 
fluence of the sex results from the character and deportment 
of each one whom it includes, and that an exception to the 
general practice might be injurious, though conformity to it 
might as a single force be productive of little good. 

7. Every woman is as accountable for whatever influence 
she may exert, as if it would be felt over a continent. Cath- 
arine of Russia, even among that rude people, owed a ser- 
vice to society as much in her youthful obscurity, as when 
she was the sole occupant of the throne. 

8. The daughter of Necker wielded an influence, which 
she ought to have more respected, long before her writings 
were the admiration of Europe. It is not authors or queens, 
the gifted with talent or with wealth, who determine the spirit 
and character of the age. It is the many, of whom each in- 
dividual is an important one. 

9. If through female encouragement and example, the spirit 
of this age is to be purified of folly, if it is to be elevated and 
adorned by excellence, women must be sincerely and practi- 
cally religious. Their regard for religion must not be super- 
ficial; their reverence and love for it must appear to be seated 
in the heart. 

10. Let it be known that they are the advocates of a piety 
which they cherish in their own souls, and that they are op- 

B 2 


28 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


posed, in principle and habit, to every practice inconsistent 
with the morality of the gospel, and however great a change 
must be made in the sentiments or usages of the other sex, it 
will be made. 

11. For when the alternative is amendment or exclusion 
from their favour, hesitation will not long precede choice. 
Here is a suitable and noble field for their patriotism. Here 
they may render better service to the State, than if their votes 
were given for ‘its rulers, or their voices were heard in its de- 
liberative assemblies. They may.send to exercise the pre- 
rogatives of freemen and magistrates those, who, never 
swerving from the line of duty, will fear God and work righte- 
ousness. 

12. The situation of woman is very different now, from her 
condition before Christianity had enlightened the world ; very 
different now in Christian Europe and America, and in Ma- 
hometan or Pagan Asia and Africa. ‘The sex owe a debt of 
gratitude to the gospel of Jesus Christ, which they can never 
discharge ; and in this circumstance, | find a reason for urging 
upon them the culture of religious character. 

13. It was Christianity, which raised woman from degra- 
dation and servitude, which placed her by the side of man, 
and taught him to treat her as an equal and a friend. It was 
Christianity, which revived in her the consciousness of a na- 
ture which the blind tyranny of the other sex had doomed to 
inaction and oblivion. 

14. It was Christianity, which opened to her treasures of 
happiness, from which she had been debarred on earth, and 
joys celestial, to which she had never dared lift an eye of 
hope. It is Christianity, which has made her what she is in 
every civilized nation on the globe, and may ultimately redeem 
every one of he: sex from an unjust bondage to ignorance 
and human will. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 29 


LESSON IIL. 


Publick School Education. 


The following Address was delivered at the Annual Exhibition of Publick 
School, No. 7,in the City of New York, on the 10th of February, 1835, 
by Master Charles Fanning, aged 12 years. Written by Mr. Wm. A. 
Waxkeék, at that time Assistant Teacher in said School, subsequently 
Principal ‘Teacher of Publick School, No. 15. 


1. THis and similar occasions may not, perhaps, readily 
suggest reflections adequate to their real importance. Weare 
apt, in the moral as well as in the physical world, to overlook 
What is smail and unassuming. Yet such are oftentimes the 
sign or the consequence of operations of the highest import. 
All the kinder and nobler results proceed by gradual and almost 
insensible means. ‘The lightning, the storm, the earthquake, 
astonish while they destroy ; but itis the gentle dew and sum- 
mer air, that clothe the earth with beauty, supply the wants of 
man, and swell his heart with thankfulness. 

2. Is not this, then, an occasion of triumph, of gratitude, 
for us, for you? For ourselves, we know full well that it is. 
Here is the scene of efforts, where mind strives with mind, 
in struggles as absoeving (and are they not as worthy?) as 
those of warriour with warriour. Here the'theatre of pleasure 
the highest and purest, the pleasure resulting from the cultiva- 
tion of the nobler portion of our nature. Here a home, 
second only to the parental one, hallowed by companionships 
in the purest pursuits, and watched over by those elder 
brothers of the mind, whose duty and whose pleasure it is to 
direct and to improve us. 

3. Liere, then, we are proud and glad, to stand forth and to 
testify, by word and example, how much we value the high 
privileges of this place. Here, we weleome parents and 
friends, to a spectacle, which should gladden each parent’s 
heart. We welcome the philanthropist, to a scene promising 
to realize ail his high hopes for his species. We welcome 
the citizen, conscious that here is the source of all those wide 


t 


30 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


and beneficent influences, in which every good citizen will re- 
joice, as the principles of social and political health. Here, 
in our Publick Schools, are the wells, whose waters are unto 
life, the streams in which a nation may wash and be clean. 

4, But not alone in triumph would we speak. Gratitude, 
the offering of the cultivated heart alone, have we to pay in 
large but willing measure. And to you,* ye untiring friends 
to us and to humanity, to you, may we not. be permitted, on 
this scene of your elevated philanthropy, to pour out the trib- 
ute of young, but warm hearts ? 

5. But for your Heaven-directed labours, what might have 
been the fate of many a now happy boy. ‘Chill penury” 
might have suppressed every better hope of the future. Had 
the brow of knowledge, to others so fair and cheering, been 
turned with a frown from the cottage of the poor, where would 
have been, for many of us, those warm and bright hues, with 
which all the future now beams upon our hopes? Despairing 
of aught better than the poor lot of our inheritance, hopeless 
of advancement, we might have journeyed through a life of 
wretchedness, or, imbittered by a sense of degradation, have 
rushed down some * of the thousand paths which slope the 
way to crime.” 

6. How is it with us now? Here, the son of the rich man 
and of the poor meet in that true equality, which is the proud- 
est principle of our country’s character. Here, we measure 
ourselyes mind to mind, and here is no superiority but that of 
nature and of industry. Who, in this place, would dare 
speak of rank, or wealth, or sect, or party? Here, we recog- 
nise all but in cne character; American youth, soon to be 
American citizens. Citizens knowing no equals but each 
other, no superiour but their God! 

7. It is in this place, and places like this, that we form and 
train ourselves for future usefulness and honour. But not 
alone of the present life would we speak. Let us not, in the 
height of earthly hope, forget the yet higher office of educa- 
tion. Let us remember that, compared with which all else is 
nothingness. With our education expands the sphere of our 


* Trustees of the Publick Schools. 


‘ 
’ 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 31 


duty. Our debt to Heaven increases with the increase of our 
knowledge. And may it never chance, that, as our minds are 
strengthened and their view extended, we should fail to con- 
ceive more truly, and to appreciate more highly, our relations 
to a worldabove us. Let education, like one of the sciences, 
which it opens to us, become the means of elevating our 
thoughts from this humble sphere to the universe of Faith and 
of God. 

8. To you, then, I repeat, ye worthy and devoted almoners 
of our country’s noble patronage, to you our hearts render their 
deep gratitude for all these our privileges. We would express 
it, but adequately we may not. ‘To your own hearts, to your 
own high motives, we refer you for your best reward ; to them, 
to your country, to Heaven. For ourselves, our lives shall tell 
the story of your beneficence. 

9. One word to our friends here assembled. You are 
American citizens. Where can you look for the means of 
national honour ; where, for the preservation of the free institu- 
tions which you love, but to the system of Publick School 
Instruction? It is an engine of noble invention and mighty 
powers, framed by your country, with a worthy and magnan- 
imous patronage, to raise the national character to that level of 
virtue and knowledge, indispensable, in political society, to 
self-covernment. 

10. It is the first and fundamental portion of free institu- 
tions. From the day when the Spartan mother sent forth her 
boy, the pupil of his country, to die or to conquer, in his 
country’s battles, to that dark and bleak hour, when the more 
than Spartan band stood first upon the Rock of Plymouth, 
no land has long remained free without a system of publick 
instruction. And has our country no battles to be fought? 
Are there not here, as well as elsewhere, the elements of li- 
centiousness, of crime, of political degradation? And whence 
are these powers of evil to be borne back? They are the foes, 
alike to knowledge and to our country. And here, in our 
Publick Schools, are the battle-fields, where they are to be met 
and vanquished with weapons of ethereal temper. Here is 
marshalling a host, ready armed, to go forth and do mightily 
for virtue and for right. 


a2 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


11. Whenever, in our now blessed country, these dark pow- 
ers shall array themselves for their work of desolation, here will 
be found a chosen band for their discomfiture. Ours are not 
the banners ralled in blood, or streaming fearfully across the 
reddened fields, and above the stormy passions of men! But 
that, under which we go forth, gleams gloriously in the sun- 
light of truth; and, as it floats broad and proud mid-heaven, 
out from its bright waving folds, flashes forth, in characters of 
light, the one, true, legend of freemen, KNOWLEDGE AND 
LaiBERTY, ONE AND INSEPARABLE ! 


LESSON IY. 


On the Importance of Studying the English Language Gram- 
matically. 
Extract from a Lecture on Grammar, delivered in Boston, before the Amer- 
ican Institute of Instruction, August, 1831, by GooLp Brown. 

1. Tue English language may now be regarded as the com- 
mon inheritance of about fifty millions of people; who are at 
least as highly distinguished for virtue, intelligence, and enter- 
prise, as any other equal portion of the earth’s population. 
All these are more or less interested in the purity, permanency, 
and right use of that language; inasmuch as it is to be not 
only the medium of mental intercourse with others for them 
and their children, but the vehicle of all they value in the re- 
version of ancestral honour, or in the transmission of their own. 

2. It is even impertinent, to tell a man of any respectability, 
that the study of this his native language is an object of great 
importance and interest: if he does not, from these most ob- 
vious considerations, feel it to be so, the suggestion will be less 
likely to convince him, than to give offence, as conveying an 
implicit censure. Every person who has any ambition to ap- 
pear respectable among people of education, whether in con- 
versation, in correspondence, in publick speaking, or in print, 
must be aware of the absolute necessity of a competent know]- 
edge of the language in which he attempts to express his 
thoughts. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 33 


3. Many a ludicrous anecdote is told of persons venturing 
to use words of which they did not know the proper applica- 
tion; many a ridiculous blunder has been published to the 
lasting disgrace of the writer; and so intimately does every 
man’s reputation for sense depend upon his skill in the use of 
language, that it is scarcely possible to acquire the one with- 
out the other. Who can tell how much of his own good or 
ill success, how much of the favour or disregard with which 
he himself has been treated, may have depended upon that 
skill or deficiency in grammar, of which, as often as he has 
either spoken or written, he must have afforded a certain and 
constant evidence ¢ 

4. To excel in grammar, is but to know better than others 
wherein grammatical excellence consists ; and, as this excel- 
lence, whether in the thing itself or in him that attains to it, is 
merely comparative, there seems to be no fixed point of per- 
fection beyond which such learning may not be carried. In 
speaking or writing to different persons, and on different sub- 
jects, it is necessary to vary one’s style with great nicety of 
address ; and in nothing does true genius more conspicuously 
appear, than in the facility with which it adopts the most appro- 
priate expressions, leaving the critick no word to amend. 

5. Such facility of course supposes an intimate knowledge 
of all words in common use, and also of the principles on 
which they are to be combined. With a language which we 
are daily in the practice of hearing, speaking, reading, and 
writing, we may certainly acquire no inconsiderable acquaint- 
ance, without the formal study of its rules. All the true prin- 
ciples of grammar were presumed to be known to the learned 
before they were written for the aid of learners ; nor have they 
acquired any independent authority by being recorded in a 
book, and denominated grammar. 

6. The teaching of them, however, has.tended in no small 
degree to settle and establish the construction of the language, 
to improve the style of English writers, and to-enable us to 
ascertain with more clearness the true standard of grammatical 
purity. He who learns only by rote, may speak the words or 
phrases which he has thus acquired; and he who has the ge- 
nius to discern intuitively what is regular and proper, may 


34 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


have further aid from the analogies which he thus discovers ; 
but he who would add to such acquisitions the satisfaction of 
knowing what is right, must make the pungipies of language 
his study. 

7. To produce an able and elegant writer, may require 
something more than a knowledge of grammar rules; yet it 
is argument enough in favour of those rules, that without a 
knowledge of them no elegant and able writer is produced. 
Who that considers the infinite number of phrases which words 
in their various combinations may form, and the utter impos- 
sibility that they should ever be recognised individually for the 
purposes of instruction or criticism, but must see the absolute 
necessity of dividing words into classes, and of showing by 
general rules of formation and construction the laws to which 
custom commonly subjects them, or from which she allows 
them in particular instances to deviate ? 

8. Grammar, or the art of writing and speaking, must con- 
tinue to be learned by some persons ; because it is of indis- 
pensable use to society. And the only question is, whether 
children and youth shall acquire it by a regular process of 
study and method of instruction, or be left to glean it solely 
from their own occasional observation of the manner in which 
other people speak and write. The practical solution of this 
question belongs chiefly to parents and guardians. 

9, I can only commend the study to my readers, leaving 
every one to choose how much he will be influenced by my 
advice, example, or arguments. If past experience and the 
history of education be taken for guides, the study will not be 
neglected, and the method of inculcation will become an ob- 
ject of particular inquiry and solicitude. The English lan- 
guage ought to be learned at school, as other languages usually 
are; by the study of its grammar, accompanied with regular 
exercises of parsing, correcting, pointing, and scanning ; and 
by the perusal of its writers, accompanied with stated exercises 
in composition and elocution. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 35 


LESSON VY. 
Battle of Hohenlinden.—CamPBELL. 


- On Linden, when the sun was low, 
All bloodless lay th’ untrodden snow, 
And dark as winter was the flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 
- But Linden saw another sight, 
When the drum beat, at dead of night, 
Commanding fires of death to light 
The darkness of her scenery. 
. By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, 
Each horseman drew his battle blade, 
And furious every charger neighed, 
To join the dreadful revelry. 
- Then shook the hills with thunder riv’n, 
Then rushed the steed to battle driv’n, 
And louder than the bolts of Heaven, 
Far flashed the red artillery. 
. And redder yet those fires shall glow, 
On Linden’s hills of blood-stained snow, 
And darker yet shall be the flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 
. Tis morn, but scarce yon lurid sun 
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, 
Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun, 
Shout midst their sulph’rous canopy. 
. The combat deepens. On, ye brave, 
Who rush to glory, or the grave ! 
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave ! 
And charge with all thy chivalry ! 
. Ah! few shall part where many meet! 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet,. 
And every turf beneath their feet, 
Shall be a soldier’s sepulchre. 


36 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON VI. 
- Power of Death.—Wit.iam Crarts. 


1. Deatu has been among us, my friends, and has left a 
melancholy chasm. He has torn his victim from the heart of 
society, and from the altar of the living God. He has tri- 
umphed over the blushing honours of youth, the towering 
flight of genius, and the sacred ardour of devotion. Virtue, 
philanthropy, religion, are bereaved, andin tears. Death, ter- 
rible and insatiate, has been among us, and we are met to pay 
him tribute. 

2. O thou destroyer of human hope and happiness! was 
there no head, frosted by time, and bowed with cares, to which 
thy marble pillow could have yielded rest? Was there no 
heart-broken sufferer to seek refuge from his woes in thy 
cheerless habitation? Was there no insulated being, whose 
crimes or miseries would have made thee welcome! who had 
lived without a friend, and could die without a mourner ? 

3. These, alas, could give no celebrity to thy conquests, for 
they fall, unheeded as the zephyr.. Thy trophies are the 
gathered glories of learning, the withered hopes of usefulness, 
the tears of sorrowing innocence, the soul-appalling cries of 
the widow and the orphan. ‘Thou delightest to break our hap- 
piness into fragments, and to tear our hearts asunder. 


LESSON VII. 
The Missionary Preacher.—W. Gitmore Simms. 


1. In our western forests, where men are remotely situated 
from one another, and cannot well provide for an established 
place of worship and a regular pastor, the labours of the Mis- 
sionary, valued at the lowest standard of human want, are in- 


¥, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 37 


appreciable. We may add, that never did labourers more de- 
serve, yet less frequently receive, their reward. 

2. Humble in habit, moderate in desire, indefatigable in 
well-doing, pure in practice and intention, without pretence or 
ostentation of any kind, they have gone freely and fearlessly 
into places the most remote and perilous, with an empty scrip, 
but with hearts filled to overflowing with love of God and 
good-will to men; preaching their doctrines with a simple 
and an unstudied eloquence, meetly characteristick of, and well 
adapted to, the old groves, the deep primitive forests, and 
rudely barren wilds, in which it is their wont most commonly 
to give them utterance. 

3. Day after day, week after week, and month after month, 
finding them wayfarers still, never slumbering, never reposing 
from the toil they have engaged in, until they have fallen, al- 
most literally, into the narrow grave by the wayside ; their 
resting-place unprotected by any other mausoleum or shelter 
than those trees which have witnessed their devotions; their 
names and worth unmarked by any inscription; their mem- 
ories, however, closely treasured up and carefully noted among 
human affections, and within the bosoms of those for whom 
their labours have been taken; and their reward, with a high 
ambition cherished well in their lives, found only in that better 
abode where they are promised a cessation from their labours, 
but where their works still follow them. 


LESSON VIII. 
Rhyme and Reason—an Apologue.—GerorcE P. Morris, 


1. Two children, ‘ once upon a time,’’ 
In the summer season, 
Woke to life; the one was Rhyme, 
‘ The other’s name was Reason. 
Sweet Poesy enraptured pressed 
The blooming infants to her breast. 


38 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


2. Reason’s face and form to see 
Made her heart rejoice ; 
Yet there was more of melody 
In Rhyme’s delicious voice : 
But both were beautiful and fair, 
And pure as mountain stream and air. 
3. As the boys together grew 
Happy fled their hours, 
Grief or care they never knew 
In the Paphian bowers. 
See them roaming, hand in hand, 
The pride of all the vestal band. 
4. Musick, with harp of golden strings, 
Love, with bow and quiver, 
Airy sprights on radiant wings, 
Nymphs of wood and river, 
Joined the muses’ constant song 
As Rhyme and Reason passed along. 
5. But the scene was changed; the boys 
Left their native soil ; 
Rhyme’s pursuit was idle joys, 
Reason’s, manly toil. 
Soon Rhyme was starving im a ditch, 
While Reason grew exceeding rich. 
6. Since that dark and fatal hour 
When the brothers parted, 
Reason has had wealth and power, 
Rhyme’s poor and broken-hearted. 
And now, or bright or stormy weather, 
They twain are seldom seen together. 


LESSON IX. 
Character of the Irish Patriots of 1798.—S. D. Lanctree. 


1. Never was there an array of purer moral worth, of 
stronger genius, of more elevated talent, and more unsullied 
integrity, than the men who appeared in the nation’s van in 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 39 


that hopeless but immortal cause, and planned, and all but 
conducted to complete success, the most gigantick conspiracy 
of which we have any record in the world. Of these patriots, 
and their unhonoured memories will have justice yet, the 
great majority perished on the scaffold, and never, surely, was 
there a hecatomb of greater virtue offered at the shrine of 
startled despotism. 

2. Others, banished from their native soil, found refuge in 
distant lands, and in the blended lustre of their character and 
talents, there giving an effulgent evidence of what must have 
been the brightness of the constellation of which they were 
but the scattered stars, had it ever attained its zenith. And 
others of them, after wasting their morning prime in dungeon 
damps, still live in their native land, illustrating in the influence 
of their spotless lives, the purity of the principles they pro 
fessed. | 

3. Among them, the gifted and accomplished Teeling, who, 
after losing a father and a brother, and a princely fortune, in 
the cause, still remains to do honour to the calumniated creed 
of his compatriots by his character, and to rescue their insulted 
memories by his talents, not Jess adorning private life than 
honouring publick principle, and winning even from admiring 
opponents, for enemies he has none, the warmest cordiality of 
respect. 

4. But the haze of madness will not last for ever, and the 
period is approaching fast when those terrible times will be 
honoured and described, and perhaps revenged, as they ought; 
for history, fruitful as it-is in example, never exhibited in all its 
fearful contrasts a change more marked than the present state 
of the British empire, as compared with that appalling period. 
_ How strongly now will the prophetick words of the poet of 
patriotism apply, 


‘** Weep on, perhaps in after days ; 
They’ll learn to love your name, 
And many a deed shall wake to praise 
That now must sleep in blame.” 


5. Yes, now, when the whole British nation, with the 
British monarch at their head, have recorded their approval 


40 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


before the world, and adopted those very principles, for ad- 
hering to which, not forty years before, Harvey, Bond, Fitz- 
gerald, 'Teeling, and a host of othes, were branded by relent- 
less power with the traitor’s name, and suffered the traitor’s 
death ; now, what measure of retrospective justice should be 
dealt out upon the actors in that bloody tragedy, and what 
honours should be paid to those victims of a darker age! 
Walks there now no titled miscreant abroad, whom the late 
events in England will brand, before he goes to his great ac- 
count, with the murderer’s name and the murderer’s sin? Yes, 
sleep on, calumniated men; justice has been done, your 
characters stand redeemed, your motives unaspersed, and in 
the constitution of 1832, the British nation have erected a 
moral cenotaph to your memory, prouder than eternal brass, on 
which is inscribed, in unfading characters of historick light ; 
To rue Martyrs or 1798. 

6. Let us dismiss this subject. How the heart expands 
with the reflection that these great events are the coming dawn 
of that day of brightness, when the accumulated miseries of 
six centuries of oppression will be wiped off and atoned, and that 
deautiful island, ‘“ redeemed, regenerated, and disinthralled,” 
shall take the place among the nations of the earth which God 
and nature have assigned it. ‘Then these victims of a tragick 
policy will not have died in vain; and future times shall take 
a pleasure in believing that the lamp of their liberation has 
been lighted at their tombs. 


LESSON X. 


Extract from Martin Van Buren’s Speech, on the Bill for the Relief of cer- 
tain Surviving Officers of the Revolutionary Army. 


1. Let us look, for a moment, at the arguments advanced 
by the opponents of the bill. The meritorious services of 
the petitioners, the signal advantages that have resulted from 
these services to us and to posterity ; the losses sustained by 
the petitioners, and the consequent advantages derived by the 
government from the act of commutation, are unequivocally 
admitted. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 4] 


2. But it is contended, we have made a compromise legaily 
binding on the parties, and exonerating the government from 
farther liability; that in an evil and unguarded hour they have 
given us a release, and we stand upon our bond. 

3. Now the question which I wish to address to the con- 
science and the judgements of this honourable body, is this, 
not whether this issue was well taken in point of law; not 
whether we might not hope for a safe deliverance under it ; 
but whether the issue ought to be taken at all; whether it - 
comports with the honour of the government to plead a legal 
exemption against the claims of gratitude ; whether, in other 
words, the government be bound at all times to insist upon its 
strict legal rights. 

4. Has this been the practice of the government on all 
former occasions? Or, is this the only question on which this 
principle should operate? Nothing can be easier than to 
show that the uniform practice of the government has been at 
war with the principle which is now opposed to the claim of 
the petitioners. , 

5. Nota session has occurred since the commencement 
of this government, in which congress has not relieved the 
citizens from hardships resulting from unforeseen contingen- 
cies, and forborne an enforcement of Jaw, when its enforce- 
ment would work great and undeserved injury. I might, if 
excusable on an occasion like this, turn over the statute book, 
page by page, and give repeated proofs of this assertion. But 
it is unnecessary. 

6. It appears, then, that it has not been the practice 
of the government to act the part of Shylock with its citizens ; 
and God forbid that it should make its début on the present 
occasion, not so much in the character of a merciless 
creditor, as a reluctant, though wealthy debtor; withhold- 
ing the merited pittance from those to whose noble daring 
and unrivalled fortitude, we are indebted for the privilege 
of sitting in judgement on their claims; and manifesting 
‘more sensibility for the purchasers of our lands than for those 
by whose bravery they were won, and but for whose achieve- 
ments, those very purchasers, instead of being the proprietors 
of their soil, and the citizens of free and sovereign states, 


42 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


might now be the miserable vassals of some worthless favour- 
ite of arbitrary power. 

7. If disposed to be less liberal to the Revolutionary offi- 
cers than to other classes of community, let us at least testify 
our gratitude by relieving their sufferings, and returning a por- 
tion of those immense gains which have been the glorious 
fruits of their toil and of their blood. 

8. Such would, in my judgement, be a correct view 
of the subject, had the government relieved itself of all 
farther liability by the most ample and unexceptionable per- 
formance of its stipulations. How much stronger, then, will 
be their appeal to’ your justice, if it can be shown that you 
have no right to urge this act of commutation as a complete 
fulfilment of your promise ? 


, LESSON XI. 
ie 


a 


Education. 


Extract from an Address delivered at the Collegiate Institution in Amherst, 
Mass., by Heman Humphrey, D. D.,on occasion of his Inauguration to 
the Presidency of that Institution, October 15, 1823. 

_.1. Convenep as we are this day, in the portals of science 
and literature, and with all their arduous heights and profound 
depths and Elysian fields before us, education offers itself as 
the inspiring theme of our present meditations. This ina 
free, enlightened, and Christian state, is confessedly a subject 
of the highest moment. How can the diamond reveal its lus- 
tre from beneath incumbent rocks and earthy strata? How 
can the marble speak, or stand forth in all the divine symmetry 
of the human form, till it is taken from the quarry and fash- 
ioned by the hand of the artist ? 

2. And how can man be intelligent, happy, or useful, with- 
out the culture and discipline of education? It is this that 
smooths and polishes the roughness of his-nature. It is this 
that unlocks the prison house of his mind and releases the 
captive. It is the transforming hand of education, which is. 
now in so many heathen lands ames sayageaess and = a - 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 43 


norance, pagan fanaticism and brutal stupidity, revenge, and 
treachery, and lust; and in short, all the warring elements of 
our lapsed nature, into the various forms of exteriour decency, 
of mental brilliancy, and of Christian loveliness. 

3. It is education that pours light into the understanding, 
lays up its golden treasures in the memory, softens the asperi- 
ties of the temper, checks the waywardness of passion and 
appetite, and trains to habits of industry, temperance, and be- 
nevolence. Itis this which qualifies men for the pulpit, the sen- 
ate, the bar, the practice of medicine, and the bench of justice. 
It is to education, to its domestick agents, its schools and col- 
leges, its universities and literary societies, that the world is 
indebted for the thousand comforts and elegances of civilized 
life, for almost every useful art, discovery, and invention. 

4, Education, moreover, is power, physical, intellectual, 
and moral power. ‘To be convinced of this, we need only 
compare our own great republick with the myriads of pagan 
or savage men, in any part of the world. How astonishing 
the difference in every important respect! For what can the 
ignorant hordes of central Africa or Asia do, either in arts or 
in arms? What to make themselves happy at home or re- 
spected abroad? And what, on the other hand, can not civ- 
ilized Americans accomplish ? 

5. In a word, education, regarding man as a rational, ac- 
countable, and immortal being, elevates, expands, and en- 
riches his mind; cultivates the best affections of his heart; 
pours a thousand sweet and gladdening streams around the 
dwellings of the pooras well as the mansions of the rich, and 
while it greatly multiplies and enhances the enjoyments of time, 
helps to train up the soul for the bliss of eternity. 

6. How extremely important, then, is every inquiry which 
relates to the philosophy of the human mind, to the early disci- 
pline and cultivation of its noble powers, to the comparative 
merits and defects of classical books and prevailing systems of 
instruction, to the advantages accruing from mathematical and 
other abstruse studies, to the means of educating the chil- 
dren of the poor in our publick seminaries, to the present state 
of science and literature in our country, and to the animating 
prospects which ‘are opening before us. 


44 NORTH AMERICAN READER+ 


LESSON XII. 
Industry. —Witiiam Leacerrt. 


1. Ir has been wisely ordered by a beneficent Providence, 
that the necessities of man properly administered to, should 
become sources of enjoyment; and though, according to the 
primal curse, the field of existence must be moistened by the 
sweat of his brow, yet that his very labour should give health 
to his body, and contentment to his mind. 

2. It is universally observed, by such as have looked upon 
life with thinking eyes, that those whom necessity requires to 
be constantly employed, are the most cheerful among man- 
kind; while, on the contrary, the disciples of sloth, they who 
** cling to their couch and sicken years away,” are irascible in 
temper, and diseased or imbecile in body; unsatisfied with 
themselves, and unsatisfactory to all around them. 

3. The salutary influence and the necessity of activity, as 
regards both the mental and corporeal functions, are not denied, 
even by those who purchase ease at the expense of health, and 
for a state of unenviable and bloated quietude, barter the spirit 
and vivacity which industry only can enjoy. 

4, Nature, by her secret and mysterious promptings, teaches 
ail who live, tht exercise is requisite: the child chases its hoop 
or ball, in obedience to her felt commands, until his cheek 
glows and his brow glistens from the salubrious pastime; the 
sportsman awakes the morning with the reverberated thunder 
of his warfare on the feathered tribe, and others pursue dan- 
gerous and toilsome modes of recreation, all unconsciously 
fulfilling her provident decrees. 

5. Hilarity of heart and hardihood of frame, spirits always 
jocund, and limbs always vigorous, courage to face danger, 
and strength to bear fatigue, can only be enjoyed by him who 
indurates his body by frequent exposure, and renders it pliant 
by incessant motion; who, by being always employed, gives 
sadness no time to fasten on his spirits, and earns refreshing 
slumber by useful toil. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 45 


6. A state of ease is at best but a neutral state of being, 
alike distant from positive happiness and positive misery. But 
it is the source of misery; for as the bark that is suffered to 
lie unattended to on the ocean, its sails untrimmed, and its helm 
unguided, may be wrecked by a sudden storm, which vigilance 
could easily have avoided ; so, in the bark of life, he who loiters 
with careless indifference on the stream of time, may be over- 
taken by the tempests that activity had out-speeded, or be 
dashed against the rocks, that by the exertions of industry had 
been passed in safety. 

7. Industry prolongs life. It cannot conquer death, but 
can defer his hour; and spreads over the interval a thousand 
enjoyments that make it pleasure to live. As rust and decay 
rapidly consume the machine that is not kept in use, so disease 
wears out the frame of indolence, until existence becomes a 
burden, and the grave a bed of rest. 

8. Industry is the friend of virtue ; and indolence the hand- 
maid of vice. ‘The active are seldom criminal; but the most 
of those who yield to guilty enticements, might trace their - 
lapse from rectitude to habits of idleness, which, leaving the 
heart vacant, gave full opportunity for the evil passions and 
desires of our nature to exert their power. 


LESSON XIIlI. 
Liberal Education.—Lercare.—Southern Review. 


1. We suppose it to be our common ambition to become a 
cultivated and a literary nation. Upon this assumption, what 
we contend for, is, that the study of the classicks is, and ought to 
be, an essential part of a liberal education ; that education of 
which the object is to make accomplished, elegant, and learned _ 
men, to chasten and to discipline genius, to refine the taste, to 
quicken the perceptions of decorum and _ propriety, to purify 
and exalt the moral sentiments, to fill the soul with a deep 
love of the beautiful, both in moral and material nature, to lift 
up the aspirations of man to objects that are worthy of his 


46 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


noble faculties and his immortal destiny, in a word, to raise 
him as far as possible above those selfish and sensual propen- 
sities, and those grovelling pursuits, and that mental blindness, 
and coarseness, and apathy, which degrade the savage and the 
boor to a condition but a little higher than that of the brutes 
that perish. 

2. We refer to that education and to those improvements, 
which draw the broad line between civilized and barbarous na- 
tions, which have crowned some chosen spots with glory and 
immortality, and covered them all over with a magnificence, 
that, even in its mutilated and mouldering remains, draws _ to- 
gether pilgrims of every tongue and of every clime, and which 
have caused their names to fall like a “ breathed spell” upon 
the ear of the generations that come into existence, long after 
the tides of conquest and violence have swept over them, and 
left them desolate and fallen. 

3. Itis such studies we méan, as make that vast difference 
in the eyes of a scholar between Athens, their seat and shrine, 
and even Sparta, with all her civil wisdom and military renown, 
and have (hitherto at least) fixed the gaze and the thoughts of 
all men with curiosity and wonder, upon the barren little pen- 
insula between Mount Cithezron and Cape Sunium, and the 
islands and the shores around it, as they stand out in lonely 
brightness and dazzling relief amidst the barbarism of the 
west on the one hand, and the dark, silent, und lifeless wastes 
of oriental despotism on the other. Certainly we do not 
mean to say, that in any system of intellectual discipline, 
poetry ought to be preferred to the severe sciences. 

4. On the contrary, we consider every scheme of merely 
elementary education as defective, unless it develop and bring 
out all the faculties of the mind, as far as possible, into equal 
and harmonious action, But, surely, we may be allowed to 
argue from the analogy of things, and the goodness that has 
clothed all nature in beauty, and filled it with musick and with 
fragrance, and that has at the same time bestowed upon us 
such vast and refined capacities of enjoyment, that nothing 
can be more extravagant than this notion of a day of philo- 
sophical illumination and didactick soberness being at hand, 
when men shall be thoroughly disap uses of their silly love for 
poetry and the arts. . 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 47 


LESSON XIV. 


Indian Names.—Mrs. SigourNEY. 


“ How can the red men be forgotten, while so many of our States and 
Territories, Bays, Lakes, and Rivers, are inevitably stamped by names 
of their giving?” 

1. YE say they all have passed away, 

That noble race and brave, 

That their light canoes have vanished 
From off the crested wave ; 

That midst the forests where they roamed 
There rings no hunter shout, 

But their name is on your waters, 
Ye may not wash it out. 


2. ’Tis where Ontario’s billow 

Like Ocean’s surge is curled, 

Where strong Niagara’s thunders wake 
The echo of the world. 

Where red Missouri bringeth =) 
Rich tribute from the west, 

And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps 
On green Virginia’s breast. 


3. Ye say their cone-like cabins, 

That clustered o’er the vale, 

Have fled away like withered leaves 
Before the autumn gale ; 

But their memory liveth on your hills, 
Their baptism on your shore, 

Your everlasting rivers speak 
Their dialect of yore. 


4. Old Massachusetts wears it, 
Within her lordly crown, 
And broad Ohio bears it, 
: Amidst his young renown ; 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Connecticut hath wreathed it 
Where her quiet foliage waves, 
And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse 
Through all her ancient caves. 


5. Wachuset hides its lingering voice 
Within his rocky heart, 
And Allegany graves its tone 
Throughout his lofty chart ; 
Movadnock on his forehead hoar 
Doth seal the sacred trust, 
Your mountains build their monument, 


Thoi-gh ye destroy their dust. 


6. Ye call these red-browed brethren 

The insects of an hour, 

Crushed like the noteless worm amidst 
The regions of their power ; 

Ye drive them from their father’s lands, 
Ye break of faith the seal, 

But can ye from the court of Heaven 
Exclude their last appeal ? 


7. Ye see their unresisting tribes, 

With toilsome step and slow, 

On through the trackless desert pass, 

' A caravan of wo; 

Think ye the Eternal’s ear is deaf? 
His sleepless vision dim ? 

Think ye the soul’s blood may not cry 
From that far land to him? 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 49 


LESSON XV. 
Traits of Indian Character.—Irvine. 


1. Tuere is something in the character and habits of the 
North American savage, taken in connexion with the scen- 
ery over which he is accustomed to range, its vast lakes, 
boundless forests, majestick rivers, and trackless plains, that 
is, to my mind, wonderfully striking and sublime. He is 
formed for the wilderness, as the Arab is for the desert. His 
nature is stern, simple, and enduring ; fitted to grapple with 
difficulties, and to support privations. 

2. There seems but little soil in his heart for the growth of 
the kindly virtues ; and yet, if we would but take the trouble 
to penetrate through that proud stoicism and habitual tacitur- 
nity which lock up his character from casual observation, we 
should find him linked to his fellow man of civilized life by 
more of those sympathies and affections than are usually 
ascribed to him. 

3. It was the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of America, 
in the early periods of colonization, to be doubly wronged by 
the white men. ‘They have been dispossessed of their hered- 
itary possessions by mercenary and frequently wanton war- 


fare ; and their characters have been traduced by bigoted and 


interested writers. 

4. The colonist has often treated them like beasts of the 
forest ; and the author has endeavoured to justify him in his 
outrages. The former found it easier to exterminate than to 
civilize ; the latter, to vilify than to discriminate. The appel- 
lations of savage and pagan, were deemed sufficient to sanc- 
tion the hostilities of both; and thus the poor wanderers of the 
forest were persecuted and defamed, not because they were 
guilty, but because they were ignorant. 

5. The rights of the savage have seldom been properly ap- 
preciated or respected by the white man. In peace, he has 


too often been the dupe of artful traffick ; in war, he has been 


50 NORTH AMERICAN READER 


regarded as a ferocious animal, whose life or death was a 
question of mere precaution and convenience. Man is cruelly 
wasteful of life when his own safety is endangered, and he is 
sheltered by impunity ; and little mercy is to be expected from 
him when he feels the sting of the reptile, and is conscious of 
the power to destroy. 

6. The same prejudices which were indulged thus early, 
exist, in common circulation, at the present day. Certain 
learned societies, it is true, have endeavoured, with laudable 
diligence, to investigate and record the real characters and 
manners of the Indian tribes. The American government, 
too, has wisely and humanely exerted itself to inculcate a 
friendly and forbearing spirit towards them, and to protect 
them from fraud and injustice. 

7. The current opinion of the Indian character, however, 
is too apt to be formed from the miserable hordes which infest 
the frontiers, and hang on the skirts of the settlements, 
These are too commonly composed of degenerate beings, cor- 
rupted and enfeebled by the vices of society, without being 
benefited by its civilization. ‘That proud independence which 
formed the main pillar of savage virtue, has been shaken 
down, and the whole moral fabrick lies in ruins. Their spir- 
its are humiliated and debased by a sense of inferiority, and 
their native courage cowed and daunted by the superiour 
knowledge and power of their enlightened neighbours. 

8. Society has advanced upon them like one of those 
withering airs that will sometimes breathe desolation over a 
whole region of fertility. It has enervated their strength, mul- 
tiplied their diseases, and superinduced_ upon their original bar- 
barity the low vices of artificial life. It has given them a 
thousand superfluous wants, while it has diminished their 
means of mere existence. | It has driven before it the animals 
of the chase, who fly from the sound of the axe and the smoke 
of the settlement, and seek refuge in the depths of remoter 
forests and yet untrodden wilds. 

9. Thus do we too often find the Indians _on our frontiers 
to be the mere wrecks and remnants of once powerful tribes, 
who have lingered in the vicinity of the settlements, and sunk 
into precarious and vagabond existence. Poverty, repining 


NCRTH AMERICAN READER. §1 


and hopeless poverty, a canker of the mind unknown in savage 
life, corrodes their spirits, and blights every free and noble 
quality of their natures. They become drunken, indolent, 
feeble, thievish, and pusillanimous. 

10. They loiter, like vagrants, about the settlements, 
among spacious dwellings replete with elaborate comforts, 
which only render them sensible of the comparative wretch- 
edness of their own condition. Luxury ‘spreads its ample 
board before their eyes ; but they are excluded from the ban- 
quet. Plenty revels over the fields; but they are starving in 
the midst of its abundance: the whole wilderness has blos- 
somed into a garden; but they feel as reptiles that infest it. 

. How different was their state, while yet the undisputed 
lords of the soil! Their wants were few, and the means of 
gratification within their reach. They saw every one round 
them sharing the same lot, enduring the same hardships, feed- 
ing on the same aliments, arrayed in the same rude garments. 

12. No roof then rose but it was open to the homeless 
stranger; no smoke curled among the trees but he was wel- 
come to sit down by its fire, and join the hunter in his repast. 
“For,” says an old historian of New England, “their life is 
so void of care, and they are so loving also, that they make 
use: of those things they enjoy as common goods, and are 
therein so compassionate, that rather than one should starve 
through want, they would starve all: thus do they pass their 
time merrily, not regarding our pomp, but are better content 
with their own, which some men esteem so meanly of.” 

13. Such were the Indians, while in the pride and energy 
of their primitive natures. They resemble those wild plants 
which thrive best in the shades of the forest, but shrink from 
the hand of cultivation, and perish beneath the influence of 
the sun. 

14. In discussing the savage character, writers have been 
too prone to fanless in vulgar prejudice and passionate exag- 
geration, instead of the candid temper of true philosophy. 
They have not sufficiently considered the peculiar circum- 
stances in which the Indians have been placed, and the pecu- 
liar principles under which they have been educated. No be- 
ing acts more rigidly from rule than the Indian. His whole 

: C2 


UNIVERSITY OF U. OF iLL. LIB: 
ALLINOIS LIBRARY 


§2 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


conduct is regulated according to some general maxims early 
implanted in his mind. ‘The moral laws that govern him, are, 
to be sure, but few; but then, he conforms to them all; the 
white man abounds im laws of religion, morals, and manners ; 
but how many does he violate ! 

15. A frequent ground of accusation against the Indians, 
is their disregard of treaties, and the treachery and wantonness 
with which, in time of apparent peace, they will suddenly fly 
to hostilities. The intercourse of the white men with the In- 
dians, however, is too apt to be cold, distrustful, oppressive, 
and insulting. They seldom treat them with that confidence 
and frankness which are indispensable to real friendship ; nor 
is sufficient caution observed not to offend against those feel- 
ings of pride or superstition, which often prompt the Indian to 
hostility quicker than mere considerations of interest. 

16. The solitary savage feels silently, but acutely. His 
sensibilities are not diffused over so wide a surface as those of 
the-white man; but they run in steadier and deeper channels. 
His pride, his affections, his superstitions, are all directed tow- . 
ards fewer objects; but the wounds inflicted on them, are 
proportionably severe, and furnish motives of hostility which 
we cannot sufficiently appreciate. 

17. Where a community is also limited in number, and 
forms one great patriarchal family, as in an Indian tribe, the 
injury of an individual, is the injury of the whole; and the 
sentiment of vengeance is almost instantaneously diffused. 
One council-fire is sufficient for the discussion and arrange- 
ment of a plan of hostilities. Here, all the fighting men and 
sages assemble, Eloquence and superstition combine to in- 
flame the minds of the warriours. The orator awakens their 
martial ardour, and they are wrought up to a kind of religious 
desperation by the visions of the prophet and the dreamer. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 53 


LESSON XVI. 
The Grave a place of rest.—MackeEnzIk. | 


1. Tue grave is a place where the weary are at rest. 
How soothing is this sentiment, “ The weary are at rest! 
There is something in the expression which affects the heart 
with uncommon sensations, and produces a species of delight, 
where tranquillity is the principal ingredient. ‘The sentiment 
itself is extensive, and implies many particulars: it implies, 
not only that we are delivered from the troubling of the wicked, 
as in the former clause, but from every trouble and every 
pain, to which life is subjected. 

2. Those, only, who have themselves been tried in afflic- 
tion, can feel the full force of this expression. Others may be 
pleased with the sentiment, and affected by sympathy. ‘The 
distressed are, at once, pleased and comforted. To be de- 
livered from trouble; to be relieved from power; to see op- 
pression humbled; to be freed from care and pain, from sick- 
ness and distress; to lie down as in a bed of security, ina 
long oblivion of our woes ; to sleep, in peace, without the fear 
of interruption. How pleasing is the prospect! how full of 
consolation ! 

3. The ocean may roll its waves, the warring winds may 
join their forces, the thunders may shake the skies, and the 
lightnings pass, swiftly, from cloud to cloud: but not the forces 
of the elements, combined, not the sounds of thunders, nor 
of many seas, though they were united into one peal, and di- 
rected to one point, can shake the security of the tomb. | 

4. The dead hear nothing of the tumult; they sleep soundly; 
they rest from their calamities upon beds of peace. Con- 
ducted to silent mansions, they cannot be troubled by the rudest 
assaults, nor awakened by the loudest clamour, The unfor- 
tunate, the oppressed, the broken-hearted, with those that have 
languished on beds of sickness, resthere tegether ; they have 
forgot their distresses; every sorrow is hushed, and every 
pang extinguished. 


54 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


5. Hence, in all nations, a set of names have arisen to 
convey the idea of death, congenial with these sentiments, and 
all of them expressive of supreme felicity and consolation. 
How does the human mind, pressed by real or imagined ca- 
lamities, delight to dwell upon that awful event which leads to 
deliverance, and to describe and solicit it with the fairest 
flowers of fancy! 

6. It is called the harbour of rest, in whose deep bosom 
the disastered mariner, who had long sustained the assaults of 
adverse storms, moors his wearied vessel, never more to re- 
turn to the tossings of the wasteful ocean. It is called the 
land of peace, whither the friendless exile retires, beyond the 
reach of malice and injustice, and the most cruel arrows of for- 
tune. It is called the hospitable house, where the weather- 
beaten traveller, faint with traversing pathless deserts, finds a 
welcome and secure repose. 

7. There no cares molest, no passions distract, no enemies 
defame ; there agonizing pain, and wounding infamy, and 
ruthless revenge, are no more ; but profound peace, and calm 
passions, and security which is immoveable. ‘ There the 
wicked cease from troubling; there the weary are at rest! 
There the prisoners rest together! they hear not the voice of 
the oppressor! ‘The small and the great are there, and the 
servant is free from his master !” 


LESSON XVII. 
The love of Country and of Home.—Monteomery. 


1. Tuere is a land, of every land the pride, 
Beloved by heaven o’er all the world beside ; 
Where brighter suns dispense serener light, 

And milder moons imparadise the night ; 
A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth, 
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth. 

2. The wandering mariner, whose eye explores 
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 55 


Views not a realm so bountiful and fair, 

Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air ; 

In every clime, the magnet of his soul, 
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole s 
For in this land of heaven’s peculiar grace, 
The heritage of nature’s noblest race, 

There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 

A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, 
Where man, creation’s tyrant, casts aside 
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride, 
While, in his softened looks, bemignly blend 
The sire, the son, the husband, father, friend. 

3. Here woman reigns ; the mother, daughter, wife, 
Strews with fresh flowers the narrow way of life 
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, 

An angel-guard of loves and graces lie ; 

Around her knees domestick duties meet, 

And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. 

Where shall that land, that spot of earth, be found? 
Art thou a man? a patriot? look around ; 

Oh! thou shalt find, howe’er thy footsteps roam, 
That land thy country, and that spot thy home. 


LESSON XVIII. 
Perailaneum and Pempeu.—KortzeBur. 


1. Aw inexhaustible mine of ancient curiosities exists in 
the ruins of Herculaneum, a city lying between Naples and 
Mount Vesuvius, which in the first year of the reign of Titus 
was overwhelmed by a stream of lava from the neighbouring 
volcano. This lava is now of a consistency which renders it 
extremely difficult to be removed ; being composed of bitu- 
minous particles, mixed with cinders, minerals, and vitrified 
substances, which altogether form a close and ponderous mass. 

2. In the revolution of many ages, the spot it stood upon 
was entirely forgotten: but in the year 1713 it was accident- 


56 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


ally discovered by some labourers, who, in digging a well, 
struck upon a statue on the benches of the theatre. Several — 
curiosities were dug out and sent to France, but the search 
was soon discontinued; and Herculaneum remained in ob- 
scurity till the year 1736, when the king of Naples employed 
men to dig perpendicularly eighty feet deep; whereupon not 
only the city made its appearance, but also the bed of the 
river which ran through it. 

3. In the temple of Jupiter were found a statue of gold, 
and the inscription that decorated the great doors of the en- 
trance. Many curious appendages of opulence and luxury 
have since been discovered in various parts of the city, and 
were arranged in a wing of the palace of Naples, among which 
are statues, busts, and altars; domestick, musica], and sur- 
gical instruments ; tripods, mirrors of polished metal, silver 
Kettles, and a lady’ s toilet furnished with combs, thimbles, 
rings, ear-rings, &c. 

4. A large quantity of manuscripts was also found among 
the ruins; and very sanguine hopes were entertained by the 
learned, that many works of the ancients would be restored to 
light, and that a new mine of science was on the point of being 
opened; but the difficulty of unrolling the burnt parchments, 
and of deciphering the obscure letters, has proved such an ob- 
stacle, that very little progress has been made in the work. 

5. The streets of Herculaneum seem to have been per- 
fectly straight and regular; the houses well built, and gener- 
ally uniform ; and the rooms paved either with large Roman 
bricks, mosaick-work, or fine marble. It appears that the 
town was not filled up so unexpectedly with the melted lava, 
as to prevent the greatest part of the inhabitants from escaping 
with their richest effects ; for there were not more than a dozen 
skeletons found, and but little gold or precious stones. 

6. The town of Pompeii was involved in the same dreadful 
catastrophe ; but was not discovered till near forty years after 
the discovery of Herculaneum. Few skeletons were found 
in the streets of Pompeii; but in the houses there were many, 
in situations which plainly proved, that they were endeavouring 
to escape, when the tremendous torrent of burning lava inter- 
cepted their retreat. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 57 


LESSON XIX. 
On Modesiy.—Sprcrator. 


1, I KNow no two words that have been more abused by 
the different and wrong .interpretations which are put upon 
them, than these two, Modesty and Assurance. ‘To say such 
a one is a modest man, sometimes indeed passes for a good 
character ; but at present is very often used to signify a 
sheepish awkward fellow, who has neither good breeding, po- 
liteness, nor any knowledge of the world. 

2. Again, a man of assurance, though at first only denoting 
a person of free and open carriage, is now very usually ap- 
plied to a profligate wretch, who can break through all the rules 
of decency and morality without a blush. [I shall endeavour 
therefore in this essay to restore these words to their tiue 
meaning, to prevent the idea of Modesty from being con- 
founded with that of sheepishness, and to hinder Impudence 
from passing for Assurance. 

3. If I was put to define modesty, I would call it, the re- 
flection of an ingenuous mind, either when a man has com- 
mitted an action for which he censures himself, or fancies that 
he is exposed to the censures of others. For this reason a 
man truly modest is as much so when he is alone as in com- 
pany, and as subject to a blush in his closet as when the eyes 
of multitudes are upon him. 

4..I do not remember to have met with any instance of 
modesty with which I am so well pleased, as that celebrated 
one of the young prince, whose father, being a tributary kin 
to the Romans, had several complaints laid against him before 
the senate, as a tyrant and oppressor of his subjects. The 
prince went to Rome to defend his father, but coming into the 
senate, and hearing a multitude of crimes proved upon him, 
was so oppressed when it came to his turn to speak, that he 
was unable to utter a word. The story tells us, that the fathers 
were more moved, at this instance of modesty and ingenuity, 


C3 


5S NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


than they could have been by the most pathetick oration ; and 
in short, pardoned the guilty father for this early promise of 
virtue in the.son. 

5. I take Assurance to be, the faculty of possessing a man’s 
self, or saying and doing indifierent things without any uneasi- 
ness or emotion in the mind. That which generally gives a 
man assurance, is a moderate knowledge of the world, but 
above all, a mind fixed and determined in itself to do nothing 
against the rules of honour and decency. An open and 
assured behaviour is the natural consequence of such a reso- 
lution. A man thus armed, if his words or actions are at any 
one time misinterpreted, retires within himself, and from a con- 
sciousness of his own integrity, assumes force enough to de- 
spise the little censures of ignorance or malice. 

6. Every one ought to cherish and encourage in himself 
the modesty and assurance I have here mentioned. A man 
without assurance is liable to be made uneasy by the folly or 
illnature of every one with whom he converses. A man with- 
out modesty is lost to all sense of honour and virtue. 

7. It is more than probable, that the prince abovementioned 
possessed both these qualifications in a very eminent degree. 
Without assurance he would never have undertaken to speak 
before the most august assembly in the world; without mod- 
esty he would have pleaded the cause he had taken upon him, 
though it had appeared ever so scandalous. 

8. From what has been said, it is plain, that modesty and 
assurance are both amiable, and may very well meet in the 
same person. When they are thus mixed and blended to- 
gether, they compose what we endeavour to express when we 
say a modest assurance; by which we understand the just 
mean between bashfulness and impudence. 

9. I shall conclude with observing, that as the same man 
may be both modest and assured, so it is also possible for the 
same person to be both impudent and bashful. We have fre- 
quent instances of this kind of odd mixture in people of de- 
praved minds and mean education; who, though they are not 
able to meet a man’s eyes, or pronounce a sentence without 
confusion, can voluntarily commit the greatest villanies, or 
most indecent actions. | 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 59: 


10. Such a person seems to have made a resolution to do 
ill even in spite of himself, and in defiance of ail those checks 
and restraints, his temper and complexion seem.to have laid 
in his way. Upon the whole, I would endeavour to establish 
this maxim, that the practice of virtue is the most proper 
method to give a man a becoming assurance in his words and 
actions. Guilt always seeks to shelter itself in one of the ex- 
tremes, and is sometimes attended with both. 


LESSON XX. 
The White Bear.—Percivat. 


1. Tue white bear of Greenland and Spitzbergen is con- 
siderably larger than the brown bear of Europe or the black 
bear of North America. ‘This animal lives upon fish and 
seals, and is seen not only upon land in the countries bordering 
on the North Pole, but often upon floats of ice several leagues 
at sea. ‘The following relation is extracted from the. Journal 
of a Voyage for making discoveries towards the North Pole.” 

2. Early in the morning, the man at the mast-head gave 
notice that three bears were making their way very fast over 
the ice, and that they were directing their course towards the 
ship. They had, without question, been invited by the scent 
of the blubber of a seahorse, killed a few days before, which 
the men had set on fire, and which was burning on the ice at 
the time of their approach. 

3. They proved to be a she-bear and her two cubs; but 
the cubs were nearly as large as thedam. ‘They ran eagerly 
to the fire, and drew out from the flames part of the flesh of 
the seahorse that remained unconsumed, and ate it vora- 
ciously. ‘The crew from the ship threw great lumps of the 
flesh of the seahorse, which they had still left, upon the ice. 
These the old bear carried away singly ; laid every lump be- 
fore her cubs as she brought it, and dividing it, gave each a 
share, reserving but a small portion to herself. As she was 
taking away the last piece, they levelled their muskets at the 


60 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


cubs, and shot them both dead; and in her retreat, they 
wounded the dam, but not mortally. 

4. It would have drawn tears of pity from any but unfeeling 
minds, to mark the affectionate concern expressed by this poor 
beast, in the last moments of her expiring young. ‘Though 
she was sorely wounded, an 1 could but just crawl to the place 
where they lay, she carried the lump of flesh which she had 
fetched away, and placed it before them. Seeing that they 
refused to eat, she laid her paws first upon one and then upon 
the other, and endeavoured to raise them up. It was pitiful to 
hear her moan. 

5. When she found she could not stir them, she went off; 
and, stopping when she had gotten to scme distance, she 
looked back and moaned. When she found that she could not 
entice them away, she returned, and smelling around them, 
began to lick their wounds. She went off a second time as 
before : and having crawled a few paces, looked again behind 
her, and for some time stood moaning. 

6. But still her cubs not rising to follow her, she returned 
to them again, and, with signs of inexpressible fondness, went 
round one and round the other, pawing them and moaning. 
Finding at last that they were cold and lifeless, she raised her 
head towards the ship and growled at the murderers, who then 
shot her with a volley of musket balls. She fell between her 
cubs, and died licking their wounds, 


LESSON XXI. 
Extent of Country not dangerous to the Union.—Mapison. 


1. I susmit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations 
m full confidence that the good sense which has so often 
marked your decisions, will allow them their due weight and 
effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, however 
formidable in appearance, or however fashionable the errour on 
which they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 61 


perilous scenes into which the advocates for discussion would 
conduct you. 

2. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that 
the people of America, knit together as they are by so many 
cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of 
the same family ; can no longer continue the mutual guardians 
of their mutual happiness; can no longer be _fellow-citizens 
of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. 

3. Hearken not to the voice, which petulantly tells you, 
that the form of government recommended for your adoption, 
is a novelty in the political world; that it never yet has had a 
place in the theories of the wildest projectors ; that it rashly 
attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my coun- 
trymen; shut your ears against this unhallowed language. 

4, Shut your heart against the poison which it conveys: 
the kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citi- 
zens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defence of 
their sacred rights, consecrate their union, and excite horrour 
at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if 
novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of 
all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all 
attempts, is that of rending us in pieces, in order to preserve 
our liberties and promote our happiness, 

5. But why is the experiment of an extended republick t 
be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new 2 a 
it not the glory of the people of America, that while they have 
paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other 
nations, they have not suffered a.blind veneration for antiquity, 
for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their 
own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and 
the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, 
posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for 
the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the 
American theatre, in favour of private rights and publick hap- 
piness. 

6. Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the 
revolution, for which a precedent could not be discovered, no 
government established of which an exact model did not pre- 
sent itself, the people of the United States might, at this mo- 


62 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


ment, have been numbered among the melancholy victims of 
misguided councils ; must, at best, have been labouring under 
the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the 
liberties of the rest of mankind. 

7. Happily for America, happily we trust for the whole hu- 

-man race, they pursued_a new and more noble course. They 
accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals 
of human society. They reared the fabrick of governments 
which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed 
the design of a great confederacy, which it is incumbent on 
their successors to improve and perpetuate. 

8. If their works betray imperfections, no wonder at the 
fewness-of them. If they erred most in the structure of the 
union, this was the most difficult to be executed; this is the 
work which has been new modelled by the act of your con- 
vention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate 
and to decide, 


LESSON XXII. 
Decisive Integrity. 


J Extract from Mr. Wirt’s Address to the Students of Rutgers College. 


oe 


1. THe man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his 
intentions, as to be willing to open his bosom to the inspec- 
tion of the world, is in possession of one of the strongest pil- 
lars of a decided character. The course of such a man will 
be firm and steady, because he has nothing to fear from the 
world, and is sure of the approbation and support of Heaven. 
While he, who is conscious of secret and dark designs which, 
if known, would blast him, is perpetually shrinking and dodg- 
ing from publick observation, and is afraid of all around, and 
much more of all above him. 

2. Such a man may, indeed, pursue his iniquitous plans, 
steadily ; he may waste himself to a skeleton in the guilty 
pursuit; but it is impossible that he can pursue them with the 


“a 


NORTH AMERICAN READFR, 63 


same health-inspiring confidence, and exulting alacrity, with 
him who feels, at every step, that he is in the pursuit of honest 
ends, by honest means. 

3. The clear, unclouded brow, the open countenance, the 
brilliant eye which can look an honest man steadfastly, yet 
courteously in the face, the healthfully beating heart, and the 
firm, elastick step, belong to him whose bosom ‘is free from 
guile, and who knows that all his motives and purposes are 
pure and right. Why should such a man falter in his course ? 
He may be slandered ; he may be deserted by the world: but 
he has that within which will keep him erect, and enable him 
to move onward in his course with his eyes fixed on Heaven, 
which he knows will not desert him. 

4. Let your first step, then, in that discipline which is to 
. give you decision of character, be the heroick determination 
to be honest men, and to preserve this character through every 
vicissitude of fortune, and in every relation which connects 
you with society. I do not use this phrase, “ honest men,” in 
the narrow sense, merely, of meeting your pecuniary engage- 
ments, and paying your debts; for this the common pride of 
gentlemen will constrain you to do. 

5. I use it in its larger sense of discharging all your duties, 
both publick and private, both open and secret, with the most 
scrupulous, Heaven-attesting integrity: im that sense, farther, 
which drives from the bosom all little, dark, crooked, sordid, 
debasing considerations of self, and substitutes in their place 
a bolder, loftier, and nobler spirit: one that will dispose you 
to consider yourselves as born, not so much for yourselves, as 
for your country, and your fellow-creatures, and which will 
lead you to act on every occasion sincerely, justly, generously, 
_magnanimously. 

6. There is a morality on a larger scale, perfectly consist- 
ent with a just attention to your own affairs, which it would 
be the height of folly to neglect: a generous expansion, a 
proud elevation, and conscious greatness of character, which 
is the best preparation for a decided course, in every situation 
into which you can be thrown; and, it is to this high and noble 
tone of character that I would not have you to aspire. 

7. I would not have you to resemble those weak and meager - 


64 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


streamlets, which lose their direction at every petty impedi- 
ment that presents itself, and stop, and turn back, and creep 
around, and search out every little channel through which they 
may wind their feeble and sickly course. Nor yet would I 
have you to resemble the headlong torrent that carries hayock 
in its mad career. 

8. But I would have you like the ocean, that noblest em- 
blem of majestick Decision, which, in the calmest hour, still 
heaves its resistless might of waters to the shore, filling the 
heavens, day and night, with the echoes of its sublime Decla- 
ration of Independence, and tossing and sporting, on its bed, 
with an imperial consciousness of strength that laughs at oppo- 
sition. It is this depth, and weight, and power, and purity of 
character, that I would have you to resemble; and I would 
have you, like the waters of the ocean, to become the purer 
by your own action. 


LESSON XXIII. 
Green River.—Brvanr. 


1. WueEn breezes are soft, and skies are fair, 

I steal an hour from study and care, 

And hie me away to the woodland scene, 

Where wanders the stream with waters of green, 
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink 
Had given their stain to the wave they drink. 
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through, 
Have named the stream from its own fair hue. 

2. Yet pure its waters, its shallows are bright 
With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light; 
And clear the depths where the eddies play, 

And dimples deepen and whirl away ; 

And the plane-tree’s speckled arms o’ershoot 

The swifter current that mines its root ; 

‘Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill, 
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 65 


With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown, 

Like the ray that streams from the diamond stone. 
3. O, loveliest there the spring days come, 
With blossoms, and birds, and wild bees’ hum ; 

The flowers of summer are fairest there, 
And freshest the breeze of the summer air, 
And the swimmer comes, in the season of heat, 
To bathe in those waters so pure and sweet. 
4, Yet, fair as thou art, thou shunnest to glide, 
Beautiful stream! by the village side, 
But windest away from haunts of men, 
To silent valley, and shaded glen. 
And forest, and meadow, and slope of hill, 
Around thee, are lonely, lovely, and still. 
5. Lonely, save when, by thy rippling tides, 
From thicket to thicket the angler glides ; 
Or the simpler comes, with basket and book, 
For herbs of power on thy banks to look ; 
Or haply some idle dreamer like me, 
To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee. 
6. Still, save the chirp of birds that feed 
On the river cherry and seedy reed ; 
And thy own wild musick, gushing out 
With mellow murmur, or fairy shout, 
From dawn to the blush of another day 
Like traveller singing along his way. 
7. That fairy musick I never hear, 
Nor gaze on those waters so green and clear, 
And mark them winding away from sight, 
Darkened with shade, or flashing with light, 
While o’er thee, the vine to its thicket clings, 
And the zephyr stoops to freshen his wings ; 
But I wish that fate had left me free 
To wander these quiet haunts with thee, 
Till the eating cares of earth should depart, 
And the peace of the scene pass into my heart ; 
And I envy thy stream as it glides along 
Through its beautiful banks, in a trance of song. 
8. Though forced to drudge for the dregs of men, 


66 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, 
And mingle among the justling crowd, 

Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud ; 

I sometimes come to this quiet place, 

To breathe the air that ruffles thy face, 

And gaze upon thee in silent dream ; 

For, in thy lonely and lovely stream, 

An image of that calm life appears 

That won my heart in my greener years. 


LESSON XXIV. 
Wild Horses.—¥F vint. 


]. Tuer day before we came in view of the Rocky Mount- 
ains, | saw in the greatest perfection that impressive, and, to 
me, almost sublime spectacle, an immense drove of wild horses, 
for a long time hovering around our path across the prairie. I 
had often seen great numbers of them before, mixed with 
other animals, apparently quiet, and grazing like the rest. 
Here there were thousands unmixed, unemployed ; their mo- 
tions, if such a comparison might be allowed, as darting, and 
as wild as those of hummingbirds on the flowers. 

2. The tremendous snorts, with which the front columns of 
the phalanx made known their approach to us, seemed to be 
their wild and energetick way of expressing their pity and dis- 
dain, for the servile lot of our horses, of which they appeared 
to be taking a survey. 

3. ‘They were of all colours, mixed, spotted, and diversified 
with every hue, from the brightest white to clear and shining 
black ; and of every form and structure, from the long and 
slender racer, to those of firmer limbs and heavier mould ; 
and of all ages, from the curvetting colt, to the range of patri- 
archal steeds, drawn up ina line, and holding their high heads 
for a survey of us, in the rear. 

4. Sometimes they curved their necks, and made no more 
progress than just enough to keep pace with our advance. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 67 


a 


Then there was a kind of slow and walking minuet, in which 
they performed various evolutions, with the precision of the 
figures of a country-dance. ‘Then a rapid movement shifted 
the front to the rear. But still, in all their evolutions and 
movements, like the flight of seafowl, their lines were regular, 
and free from all indications of confusion. 

5. At times a spontaneous and sudden movement towards 
us, almost inspired the apprehension of a united attack upon 
us. Aftera moment’s advance, a snort anda rapid retrograde 
movement seemed to testify their proud estimate of their wild 
independence. ‘The infinite variety of their rapid movements, 
their tamperings and manceuvres, were of such a wild and 
almost terrifick character, that it required but a moderate 
stretch of fancy to suppose them the genu of these grassy 
plains. 

6. At one period they were formed for an immense depth 
in front of us. A wheel, executed almost with the rapidity 
of thought, presented them hovering on our flanks. Then, 
again, the cloud of dust, that enveloped their movements, 
cleared away, and presented them in our rear. ‘They evi- 
dently operated as a great annoyance to the horses and mules 
of our cavalcade. ‘The frighted movements, the increased 
indications of fatigue, sufficiently evidenced, with their frequent 
neighings, what unpleasant neighbours they considered their 
wild compatriots to be. 

7. So much did our horses appear to suffer from fatigue 
and terrour, in consequence of their vicinity, that we were 
thinking of some way in which to drive them off; when ona 
sudden, a patient and laborious donkey ef the establishment, 
who appeared to have regarded all their movements with phil- 
osophick indifference, pricked up his long ears, and gave a 
loud and most sonorous bray from his vocal shells. 

8. Instantly this prodigious multitude, and there were 
thousands of them, took what the Spanish call the “ stompado.” 
With a trampling like the noise of thunder, or still more like 
that of an earthquake, a noise that was absolutely appalling, 
they took to their heels, and were all in a few moments invisi- 
ble inthe verdant depths of the plains, and we saw them no 
more, 


68 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


LESSON XXV. 
Charity to Orphans. — STERN. 


1. TuHrey whom God hath blessed with the means, and for 
whom he has done more, in blessing them likewise with a dis- 
position, have abundant reason to be thankful to him, as the 
Author of every good gift, for the measure he hath bestowed 
to them of both: it is the refuge against the stormy wind and 
tempest, which he has planted in our hearts ; and the constant 
' fluctuation of every thing in this world, forces all the sons and 
daughters of Adam to seek shelter under it by turns. 

2. Guard it by entails and settlements as we will, the most 
affluent plenty maybe stripped, and find all its worldly com- 
forts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from us; the 
crowns of princes may be shaken; and the greatest that ever 
awed the world have looked back and moralized upon the turn 
of the wheel. 

3. That which has happened to one, may happen to every 
man: and therefore that excellent rule of our Saviour, in acts 
of benevolence, as well as every thing else, should govern us ; 
that whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
also unto them. | 

4. Hast thou ever lain upon the bed of languishing, or la- 
boured under a distemper which threatened thy life? Call to 
mind thy sorrowful and pensive spirit at that time, and say, 
What it was that made the thoughts of death so bitter? If 
thou hast children, I affirm it, the bitterness of death lay there ! 
If unbrought up, and unprovided for, what will become of 
them? Where will they find a friend when Iam gone? Who 
will stand up for them, and plead their cause against the 
wicked ? 

5. Blessed God! to thee, who art a father to the fatherless, 
and a husband to the widow, I intrust them. Hast thou ever 
sustained any considerable shock in thy fortune? or, has the 
scantiness of thy condition hurried thee into great straits, and 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 69 


brought thee almost to distraction? Consider what was it that 
spread a table in that wilderness of thought, who made thy 
cup to overflow 2 7 

6. Was it not a friend of consolation who stepped in, saw 
thee embarrassed with tender pledges of thy love, and the 
partner of thy cares, took them under his protection (Heaven! 
thou wilt reward him for it !), and freed thee from all the terrify- 
ing apprehensions of a parent’s love ? 

7. Hast thou? But how shall I ask a question which must 
bring tears into so many eyes? Hast thou ever been wounded 
in a more affecting manner still, by the loss of a most obliging 
friend, or been torn away from the embraces of a dear and 
promising child by the stroke of death? Bitter remembrance! 
nature droops at it; but nature is the same in all conditions 
and lots of life. 

8. A child, thrust forth in an evil hour, without food, with- 
out raiment, bereft of instruction and the means of its salva- 
tion, is a subject of more tender heartaches, and will awaken 
every power of nature: as we have felt for ourselves, let us 
feel; for Christ’s sake, let us feel for theirs. 


LESSON XXVI. 
A Slide in. the White Mountains.*—Mrs. Hate. 


1. Rosert looked upward. Awful precipices, to the 
height of more than two thousand feet, rose above him. Near 
the highest pinnacle, and the very one over which Abamocho 
had been seated, the earth had been loosened by the violent 
rains. 

2. Some slight cause, perhaps the sudden bursting forth 
of a mountain spring, had given motion to the mass; and it 


* The White Mountains are in the state of New Hamp- 
shire, and are the highest land in the United States, east of 
the Mississippi river. 


70 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


was now moving forward, gathering fresh strength from its 
progress, uprooting the old trees, unbedding the ancient rocks, 
and all rolling onwards with a force and velocity no human 
barrier could oppose, no created power resist. 

3. One glance told Robert that Mary must perish; that he 
could not save her. ‘ But I will die with her!” he exclaimed ; 
and, shaking off the grasp of Mendowit as he would a feather, 
“Mary, oh, Mary !” he continued, rushing towards her. She 
uncovered her head, made an effort to rise, and articulated, 
“ Robert!” as ke caught and clasped her to his bosom. ‘ Oh, 
Mary, must we die ?”” he exclaimed. ‘ We must, we must,” 
she cried, as she gazed on the rolling mountain in agonizing 
horrour; “ why, why did you come ?” 

4. He replied not; but, leaning against the rock, pressed 
her closer to his heart; while she, clinging around his neck, 
burst into a passion of tears, and, laying her head on his bosom, 
sobbed like an infant. He bowed his face upon her cold, wet 
cheek, and breathed one cry for mercy; yet, even then, there 
was in the hearts of both lovers a feeling of wild joy in the 
thought that they should not be separated. 

5. The mass came down, tearing, and crumbling, and 
sweeping all before it! The whole mountain trembled, and 
the ground shook like an earthquake. The air was darkened 
by the shower of water, stones, and branches of trees, crushed 
and shivered to atoms; while the blast swept by like a whirl- 
wind, and the crash and roar of the convulsion were far more 
appalling than the loudest thunder. 

6. It might have been one minute, or twenty (fer neither 
of the lovers took note of time), when, in the hush as of 
deathlike stillness that succeeded the uproar, Robert looked 
around, and saw the consuming storm had passed by. It had 
passed, covering the valley, farther than the eye could reach, 
with ruin. Masses of granite, and shivered trees, and mount- 
ain earth, were heaped high around, filling the bed of the 
Saco, and exhibiting an av.ful picture of the desolating track 
of the avalanche. 

7. Only one little spot had escaped its pratt and there, 
safe, as if sheltered in the hollow of His hand, who notices 
the fall of a sparrow, and locked in each other’s arms, were 


F. 


' NORTH AMERICAN READER. 7i 


Robert and Mary! Beside them stood Mendowit; his gun 
firmly clinched, and his quick eye rolling around him like a 
maniack. He had followed Robert, though he did not intend 
it; probably impelled by that feeling which makes us loath to 
face danger alone; and thus had escaped. 


LESSON XXVII. 
On Calumny.—Brown. 


1. Ir is not the insolence of the haughty, however, which 
is the only disquieter of others. There is a power in every 
individual, over the tranquillity of almost every individual. 
There are emotions, latent in the minds of those whom we 
meet, which a few words of ours may at any time call forth ; 
and the moral influence which keeps this power over the un- 
easy feelings of others under due restraint, is not the least im- 
portant of the moral influences, in its relation to general hap- 
piness. 

2. There are minds which can delight in exercising this 
cruel sway, which rejoice in suggesting thoughts that may 
poison the confidence of friends, and render the very virtues 
that were loved, objects of suspicion to him who loved them. 

3. In the daily and hourly intercourse of human life, there 
are human beings, who exert their malicious skill, in devising 
what subjects may be most likely to bring into the mind of him 
with whom they converse, the most mortifying remembrances ; 
who pay visits of condolence, that they may be sure of making 
grief a little more severely felt; who are faithful in conveying 
to every one the whispers of unmerited scandal, of which, 
otherwise, he never would have heard, as he never could have 
suspected them. 

4. Though, in exercising this friendly office, they are care- 
ful to express sufficient indignation against the slanderer, and 
to bring forward as many grounds of suspicion against different 
individuals, as their fancy can call up; who talk to some dis-— 
appointed beauty, of all the splendid preparations for the mar- 


72 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


riage of her rival, to the unfortunate dramatick poet, of the 
success of last night’s piece, and of the great improvement 
which has taken place in modern taste ; and who, if they could 
have the peculiar good fortune of meeting with any one, whose 
father was hung, would probably find no subject so attractive 
to their eloquence, as the number of executions that were 
speedily to take place. 

5. Such power man may exercise over the feelings of man ; 
and, as it is impossible to frame taws which can comprehend 
injuries of this sort, such power man may exercise Over man 
with legal impunity. But it is a power, of which the virtuous 
man will as little think of availing himself, for purposes of 
cruelty, as if a thousand laws had made it as criminal as it is 
immoral ; a power, which he will as little think of exercising, 
because it would require only the utterance of a few words, as 
of inflicting a mortal blow, because it would require only 4 
single motion of his hand. 


LESSON XXVIII. 
Descent into the Dolgoath Mine, in 1806.—S1LLiman. 


1. I was introduced yesterday to Mr. M » a manager 
of the mines, who called upon me this morning, and conducted 
me to the Dolgoath mine, situated three miles west from Red- 
ruth. It is the greatest mine in Cornwall, and is wrought 
principally for copper, although it affords tin and several other 
metals. My companion was a man of information and intel- 
ligence, and I received from him uncommon civilities. 

2. Our ride led us through a mining region; every thing 
here points towards this object; itis the great concern of the 
country, and in some department or other of this business, 
almost every man, woman, and child is employed. 

3. For it, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures are 
neglected, and that industry which, in more fortunate countries, 
is employed to fertilize and adorn the surface of the ground 


~ 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 73 


is here directed to those treasures which are concealed be- 
neath incumbent hills and mountains. 

4. You would be astonished to see what quantities of rub- 
bish the industry of the Cornish miners has collected on the 
surface: it gives the country an appearance of sterility and 
rudeness almost inconceivable. 

5. Redruth is in the centre of a circle of about twenty 
miles in diameter, within which are contained almost all the 
important mines. I came into the country with the impression 
that tin was its principal production, but I find that copper is by 
far the greatest concern, and that tin is only a secondary ob- 
ject. ‘The tin is less abundant than formerly, but the copper 
much more so; and the latter article now commands so high 
a price, that the working of the copper mines is a very profit- 
able business. 

6. The expense of the Dolgoath mines is about seven or 
eight thousand pounds sterling a month, and the clear profits 
for the last five months have been eighteen thousand pounds, 
that is, at the rate of forty-three thousand two hundred pounds, 
or one hundred ninety-two thousand dollars, a year. These 
facts make it very evident that the mining business in Corn- 
wall is a great and profitable concern. 

7. The miners are under the immediate control of a chief, 
who is called the captain of the mine. Mr. M intro- 
duced me to one of those captains, who obligingly under 
took to conduct me through the subterranean regions of Do 
goath. 

8. First of all, we repaired to the miners’ wardrobe, where. 
having taken leave of Mr. M , [ prepared for my degen 
by throwing off my own dress and putting on that 6f taz 
miners. It consisted of a very large shirt, of very ccarse 
materials, and made like the frocks of the Connecticut facn- 
ers; then of a pair of large sailor trousers, striped across 
with ‘white and black, of the coarsest stuff which is ever em- 
ployed for horse-blankets, and, over all was a loose coat, 
which, like the rest of my apparel, exhibited the strongest evi- 
dence that it had often been below the surface. 

9. I wore a pair of cow-skin shoes, without stockings, made 
fast by tow strings, passing under the sole and over the instep, 


74 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Over my head they drew a white cap, which they crowned 
with an old hat without a brim. ‘ 

10. Besides the captain, I had another guide, an experienced 
miner, who went before, while the captain followed me: each 
of them carried a supply of candles tied to a buttonhole, and, 
like them, I bore a lighted candle in my left hand, stuck into a 
mass of wet clay. Although I was preparing, like Atneas, 
_ to descend to the shades below, I could not boast of his epick 

dignity, for he bore a golden branch, while I carried only a 
tallow candle. 

11. The mines of Cornwall are of much more difficult ac- 
cess than those of Derbyshire, for instead of going horizon- 
‘tally, or with only a gentle descent, into the side of a mount- 
ain, we were obliged to go perpendicularly down the shaft, 
which is a pit formed by digging and blasting, and exactly re- 
sembles a well, except in its greater depth and varying size, 
which were sometimes greater and sometimes smaller, accord- 
ing to circumstances. 

12. The descent is by means of ladders; at the termi- 
nation of each ladder, there is commonly a resting place, 
formed by a piece of timber or a plank fixed across, in the 
stones or earth, which forms the walls of the pit; this supports 
the ladder above, and from it the adventurer steps on the lad- 
der next below. 

13. With each a lighted candle, so held by the thumb and 
forefinger of the left hand, as to leave the other three fingers 
at liberty to grasp the rounds of the ladder, and with the right 
hand devoted wholly to the same service, we commenced our 
descent. 

_ 14. It was laborious and hazardous, but we did not stop till 
we had descended four hundred feet. The rounds of the lad- 
ders are constantly wet and muddy, and therefore very slip- 
pery; many of them, through length of time, are decayed 
and worn so very small, that they seem on the point of giving 
way. 

15. In descending perpendicularly with these disadvantages, 
the utmost caution is therefore requisite, on the part of a 
novice, lest he should quit his foothold before he has a firm 
grasp with his fingers, or lest, in the dim twilight shed by his 


NcnTH AMERICAN READER. 75 


candle, he should make a false aim with his foot or hand, or 
take an imperfect and untenable hold with either; not to men- 
tion the danger of the giving way of the rounds of the ladder, 
any of which accidents would send him to a place whence he 
would not return; for, the resting places at the feet of the 
ladders, as they fill only a small part of the shaft, would di- 
minish very little the chance of going quite to the bottom. 

16. Having arrived at the depth of four hundred feet, we 
came to what the miners call an adit, or level, that is, a pas- 
sage running horizontally, or at right angles with the shaft. 

17. This passage had been made through the solid rock, 

-and it was high enough to allow us to pass along stooping, 
which we did for a considerable distance, when the sound of 
human voices from below, indicated our approach to the popu- 
lous regions of midnight; while the rattling of mechanical 
instruments, employed in breaking off the ore, and the report 
from the explosion of gunpowder, echoed and reverberated 
along these narrow caverns, with the sulphureous and suffoca- 
ting smoke, presented a combination of circumstances which 
might well have given one the impression that he had arrived 
in a worse place than the mine of Dolgoath. 

18. Proceeding along the adit, we came to another shaft, 
down which we descended two hundred feet more, and were 
then full six hundred feet from the surface. 

19. This was the principal scene of labour; at about this 
depth, there were great numbers of miners engaged in their 
respective employments. Some were boring the rocks, others 
charging with gunpowder the holes already made; others 
knocking off the ore with hammers, or prying it with pick- 
axes; others loading the buckets with ore to be drawn to the 
surface ; others working the windlasses, to raise the rubbish 
from one level to another, and ultimately to the top; in short, 
all were busy: and, although to us their employment seems 
only another name for wretchedness, they appeared quite a 
contented and cheerful class of people. In their manners 
they are gentle and uncommonly civil, and most of them 
paid me some mark of respect as a stranger. 

20. We occupied three hours in exploring the mine, and in 
this time, travelled a mile under ground, in various directions. 


D2 


76 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


The employment was extremely laborious. We could rarely 
walk erect: often we were obliged to crawl on our hands and 
knees, over sharp, rugged stones, and frequently it was neces- 
sary to lie down flat, and to work our way along by the points 
of the elbows and extremities of the toes, like seals on a beach. 

21. At one time we descended, and at another ascended, 
through a narrow aperture, where we could only with difficulty 
squeeze ourselves through, and we then continued our prog- 
ress by stepping on the projections of the rocks, as men do 
in going up or down a well. 

22. My perspiration was so violent, that streams literally 
ran from my nose, locks, and chin, and in this state we came 
to the channel, where the water of the mine flows off, through 
which we were obliged to wade along, half leg deep, for thirty 
rods. 

23. I was upon the whole much gratified and instructed. 
I saw the ore in its natural state, imbedded in solid rocks, 
principally quartz and schistus ; the mine produces also some 
tin, cobalt, pyrites, blue vitriol, and even silver. Very little 
progress is made without blasting, and this destroys more lives 
than all the other casualties of the business put together. 
They exploded one blast while we were there ; we, of course, 
retired a proper distance, out of danger. 

24. Having seen all the interesting things of the place, we 
began to ascend. We were drawn up a small part of the way 
in a bucket, worked by a windlass, but we went up principally 
by ladders, in a shaft quite remote from that in which we de- 
scended. It was that in which the rod of the steam-engine 
plays to draw up the water. | 

25. This engine is one of the greatest magnitude. The 
rod, which is made of pieces of timber, and, at the top, cannot 
be less than five or six feet in diameter, descends perpendicu- 
larly one hundred and eighty fathoms, or, one thousand and 
eighty feet, and motion is propagated through this whole dis- 
tance, so as to raise a weight of thirty thousand pounds at 
every stroke, for this is the power of the engine. 

26. The steam-engine is now extensively employed in 
mining, not only to raise the water, but the ore ; indeed, with- 
out it, the mine of Dolgoath could not be wrought; the 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 77 


strength of horses and of men is a useful auxiliary, but would 
effect, comparatively, very little alone. 

27. At length, after a most laborious and painful ascent, ~ 
less hazardous, it is true, but incomparably more fatiguing 
than the descent, we reached the surface in safety, at a vreat 
distance from the place where we first descended. With joy, 
with gratitude, I beheld the returning light of heaven, and, 
although I could not think that, in my case, the enterprise was 
rash, I should certainly dissuade any friend from gratifying 
mere curiosity at so much hazard. 

28. The danger is serious, even to the miners; for, by ex- 
plosions, by falls, by mephiiick gases, and-other causes con- 
nected with the nature of the employments, numbers of the 
people are carried off every year; and, on this account, Red- 
ruth and its vicinity has an uncommon proportion of widows 
and orphans. 

29. Immediately after coming again into daylight, we made 
all possible haste to shelter ourselves from the cold wind, as 
we were afraid of the consequences of checking too suddenly 
a very profuse perspiration ; the nearest house was our ward- 
robe, to which we immediately resorted, and performed a gen- 
eral ablution from head to foot. 1 then resumed my proper 
dress, and prepared to return again into more comfortable life. 

30. Before taking leave of my conductors, who, with the 
greatest patience, good-nature, and intelligence, had done every 
thing both for my safety and gratification, I offered them a 
small recompense ; but, with sentiments of delicacy, not often 
found in any country, among people of that grade in life, they 
declined taking any, alleging that it was not decent to receive 
money of a stranger for a mere act of civility: and it was not, 
till after repeated solicitations, that I could induce them to 
yield the point. . 

31. Such magnanimity, among people who are buried most 
of their lives, and who seem to have a kind of right to tax all 
those who live on the surface, was as unexpected as it was 
gratifying. Itis not true, however, that the Cornish miners live 
permanently below ground; they go up regularly every night, 
and down again in the morning, so that they perform, every 
day of their lives, the tour which seemed so formidable to me. 


78 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


LESSON XXIX. : 
The Alps.—Wittis GayLorp CrarK. 


1. Proup monuments of God! sublime ye stand 
Among the wonders of his mighty hand: 
With summits soaring in the upper sky, 
Where the broad day looks down with burning eye ; 
Where gorgeous clouds in solemn pomp repose, 
Flinging rich shadows on eternal snows : 
Piles of triumphant dust, ye stand alone, 
And hold, in kingly state, a peerless throne ! 
2. Like olden conquerors, on high ye rear 
The regal ensign, and the glittering spear : 
Round icy spires the mists, in wreaths unrolled, 
Float ever near, in purple or in gold: 
And voiceful torrents, sternly rolling there, 
Fill with wild musick the unpillared air : 
What garden, or what hall on earth beneath, 
Thrills to such tones, as o’er the mountains breathe ? 
3. There, through long ages past, those summits shone 
When morning radiance on their state was thrown ; 
There, when the summer day’s career was done, 
Played the last glory of the sinking sun ; 
There, sprinkling lustre o’er the cataract’s shade, 
The chastened moon her glittering rainbow made ; 
And blent with pictured stars, her lustre lay, 
Where to still vales the free streams leaped away. 
4, Where are the thronging hosts of other days,’ 
Whose banners floated o’er the Alpine ways ; 
Who, through their high defiles, to battle, wound, 
While deadly ordnance stirred the heights around 2 
Gone; like the dream that melts at early morn, 
When the lark’s anthem through the sky is borne : 
Gone ; like the wrecks that sink in ocean’s spray, 
And chill Oblivion murmurs ; Where are they ? 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 79 


5. Yet * Alps on Alps” still rise ; the lofty home 
Of storms and eagles, where their pinions roam ; 
Still round their peaks the magick colours lie, 

Of morn and eve, imprinted on the sky ; 
And still, while kings and thrones shall fade and fall, 
And empty crowns lie dim upon the pall ; 

Stil shall their glaciers flash ; their torrents roar ; 
Till kingdoms fail, and nations rise no more. 


LESSON XXX. 


Address of the President to Lafayette on his Departure from 
ithe United Siates, 1825.—J. Q. Apams. 


GeneraL LaFayetTrTr, 

1. Ir has been the good fortune of many of my distin- 
guished fellow-citizens, during the course of the year now 
elapsed, upon your arrival at their respective abodes, to greet 
you with the welcome of the nation. The less pleasing task 
now devolves upon me, of bidding you, in the name of the 
nation, adieu. 

2. It were no longer seasonable, and would be superfluous, 
to recapitulate the remarkable incidents of your early life ; 
incidents which associated your name, fortunes, and reputa- 
tion, in imperishable connexion with the independence and his- 
tory of the North American Union. ‘The part which you 
performed at that important junction was marked with charac- 
ters so peculiar, that, realizing the fairest fable of antiquity, 
its parallel could scarcely be found in the authentick records of 
human history. | 

3. You deliberately and perseveringly preferred toil, dan- 
ger, the endurance of every hardship, and the privation of 
every comfort, in defence of a holy cause, to inglorious ease, 
and the allurements of rank, affluence, and unrestrained youth, 
at the most splendid and fascinating court of Europe. That 
this choice was not less wise than magnanimous, the sanction 
of half a century, and the gratulations of unnumbered voices, - 


> 


80 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


all unable to express the gratitude of the heart, with which 
your visit to this hemisphere has been welcomed, afford ample 
demonstration. 

4. When the contest of freedom, to which you had repaired 
as a voluntary-champion, had closed, by the complete triumph 
of her cause in this country of your adoption, you returned to 
fulfil the duties of the philanthropist and patriot in the land of 
your nativity. There, in a consistent and undeviating career 
of forty years, you have maintained, through every vicissitude 
of alternate success and disappointment, the same glorious 
cause, to which the first years of your active life had been de- 
voted; the improvement of the moral and political condition 
of man. 

5. Throughout that long succession of time, the people of 
the United States, for whom, and with whom, you have fought 
the battles of liberty, have been living in the full possession 
of its fruits, one of the happiest among the family of nations ; 
spreading in population, enlarging in territory, acting and suf- 
fering according to the condition of their nature, and laying 
the foundations of the greatest, and, we humbly hope, the most 
beneficent power that ever regulated the concerns of man 
upon earth. 

6. In that lapse of forty years, the generation of men with 
whom you co-operated in the conflict of arms, has nearly 
passed away. Of the general officers of the American army 
in that war, you alone survive. Of the sages who guided our 
councils ; of the warriours who met the foe in the field or upon 
the wave, with the exception of a few, to whom unusual 
length of days has been allotted by Heaven, all now sleep with 
their fathers. A succeeding, and even a third generation, 
have arisen to take their places ; and their children’s children, 
while rising up to cal] them blessed, have been taught by them, 
as well as admonished by their own constant enjoyment of 
freedom, to include in every benison upon their fathers the 
name of him who came from afar, with them and in their 
cause to conquer or to fall. 

7. The universal prevalence of these sentiments was sig- 
nally manifested by a resolution of Congress, representing the 
whole people, and all the States of this Union, requesting the 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 81 


President of the United States to communicate to you the 
assurances of the grateful and affectionate attachment of this 
government and people, and desiring that a national ship might 
be employed, at your convenience, for your passage to the 
borders of our country. 

8. The invitation was transmitted to you by my venerable 
predecessor; himself bound to you by the strongest ties of 
personal friendship ; himself one of those whom the highest 
honours of his country had rewarded for blood early shed in 
her cause, and for a long life of devotion to her welfare. By 
him the services of a national ship were placed at your dis- 
posal. 

9. Your delicacy preferred a more private conveyance, and 
a full year has elapsed since you landed upon our shores. It 
were scarcely an exaggeration to say, that it has been to the 
people of the Union a year of uninterrupted festivity and en- 
joyment, inspired by your presence. You have traversed the 
twenty-four States of this great confederacy. You have been 
received with rapture by the survivers of your earliest com- 
panions in arms. 

10. You have been hailed as a long absent parent by their 
children, the men and women of the present age. And a 
rising generation, the hope of future time, in numbers surpas- 
sing the whole population at that day, when you fought at the 
head and by the side of their forefathers, have vied with the 
scanty remnants of that hour of trial, m acclamations of joy 
at beholding the face of him whom they feel to be the common 
‘enefactor of all. 

‘|. You have heard the mingled voices of the past, the pres- 
#., and the future age, Joiming in one universal chorus of de- 
ligex at your approach ; and the shouts of unbidden thousands, 
which greeted your landing on the soil of freedom, have fol- 
lowed every step of your way, and still resound, like the rush- 
ing of many waters, from every corner of our land. 

i2. You are now about to return to the country of your 
dirth, of your ancestors, of your posterity. The Executive 
Government of the Union, stimulated by the same feeling 
which had prompted the Congress to the designation of a na- 
tional ship for your accommodation in coming hither, has des- 


D3 
UNIVERSITY OF 
ILLINOIS LIBRARY, 


82 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


tined the first service of a frigate recently launched at this 
metropolis, to the less welcome, but equally distinguished trust, 
of conveying youhome. ‘The name of the ship has added 
one more memorial to distant regions and to future ages, of a 
stream already memorable at once in the story of your suffer- 
ings and of our independence. 

13. The ship is now prepared for your reception, and equip- 
ped for sea. From the moment of her departure, the prayers 
of millions will ascend to Heaven, that her passage may be 
prosperous, and your return to the bosom of your family as 
propitious to your happiness as your visit to this scene of your 
youthful glory has been to that of the American people. 

14. Go, then, our beloved friend; return to the land of 
brilliant genius, of generous sentiment, of heroick valour; to 
that beautiful France, the nursing mother of the Twelfth Louis, 
and the Fourth Henry; to the native soil of Bayard and 
Coligni, of Turenne and Catinat, of Fenelon and D’Agues- 
seau. In that illustrious catalogue of names which she claims 
as of her children, and, with honest pride, holds up to the ad- 
miration of other nations, the name of Lafayette has already 
for centuries been enrolled. 

15. And it shall henceforth burnish into brighter fame ; for 
if, in after days, a Frenchman shall be called to indicate the 
character of his nation by that of one individual, during the 
age in which we live, the blood of lofty patriotism shall man- 
tle in his cheek, the fire of conscious virtue shall sparkle in 
his eye, and he shall pronounce the name of Lafayette. Yet 
we, too, and our children, in life and after death, shall claim 
you for our own. 

16. You are ours by that more than patriotick self-devotion 
with which you flew to the aid of our fathers at the crisis of 
their fate ; ours by that long series of years in which you have 
cherished us in your regard ; ours by that unshaken sentiment 
of gratitude for your services which is a precious portion of 
our inheritance ; ours by that tie of love, stronger than death, 
which has linked your name, for the endless ages of time, with 
the name of Washington. 

17. At the painful moment of parting from you, we take 
comfort in the thought that, wherever you may be, to the last 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 83 


pulsation of your heart, our country will be ever present to 
your affections; and a cheerful consolation assures us that 
we are not called to sorrow most of all, that we shall see your 
face no more. We shall indulge the pleasing anticipation of 
beholding our friend again, In the mean time, speaking in 
the name of the whole people of the United States, and at a 
loss only for language to give utterance to that feeling of at- 
tachment with which the heart of the nation beats as the heart 
of one man, I bid you a reluctant and affectionate farewell ! 


LESSON XXXI. 
Reply of Lafayette to the foregoing Address.—LaFaYETTE. 


]. Amrpst all my obligations to the General Government, 
and particularly to you, sir, its respected Chief Magistrate, I 
have most thankfully to acknowledge the opportunity given 
me, at this solemn and painful moment, to present the people 
of the United States with a parting tribute of profound, inex- 
pressible gratitude. 

2. To have been, in the infant and critical days of these 
States, adopted by them as a favourite son; to have partici- 
pated in the toils and perils of our unspotted struggle for inde- 
pendence, freedom, and equal rights, and in the foundation of 
the American era of a new social order, which has already 
pervaded this, and must, for the dignity and happiness of 
mankind, successively pervade every part of the other hemi- 
sphere; to have received, at every stage of the revolution, and 
during forty years. after that period, from the people of the 
United States, and their representatives at home and abroad, 
continual marks of their confidence and kindness, has been 
the pride, the encouragement, the support, of a long and event- 
ful life. 

3. But how could I find words to acknowledge that series 
-of welcomes, those unbounded universal displays of publick 
affection, which have marked each step, each hour, of a twelve 
months’ progress through the twenty-four States, and which, 


84 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


while they overwhelm my heart with grateful delight, have 
most satisfactorily evinced the concurrence of the people in 
the kind testimonies, in the immense favours, bestowed on me 
by the several branches of their representatives in every part, 
and at the central seat of the confederacy. 

4. Yet gratifications still higher await me. In the wonders 
of creation and improvement that have met my enchanted 
eye; in the unparalleled and self-felt happiness of the people ; 
in their rapid prosperity and ensured security, publick and 
private; in a practice of good order, the appendage of true 
freedom; and a national good sense, the fina] arbiter of all 
difficulties, | have had proudly to recognise a result of the re- 
publican principles for which we have fought, and a glorious 
demonstration to the most timid and prejudiced minds, of the 
superiority, over degrading aristocracy or despotism, of popu- 
lar institutions, founded on the plain rights of man, and where 
the loeal rights of every section are preserved under a consti- 
tutional bond of union. 

5. The cherishing of that union between the States, as it 
was the farewell entreaty of our great, paternal Washington, 
and will ever have the dying prayer of every American 
patriot, so it has become the sacred pledge of the emancipa- 
tion of the world, an object in which I am happy to observe 
that the American people, while they give the animating exam- 
ple of successful free institutions, in return for an evil entailed 
upon them by Europe, and of which a liberal, enlightened 
sense, is every where. more and more generally felt, show. 
themselves every day more anxiously interested. 

6. And now, sir, how can I do justice to my deep and lively 
feelings, for the assurances, most peculiarly valued, of your 
esteem and friendship; for your so very kind references to 
old times, to my beloved associates, to the vicissitudes of my 
life ; for your affecting picture of the blessings poured by the 
several generations of the American people on the remaining 
days of a delighted veteran; for your affectionate remarks on 
this sad hour of separation, on the country of my birth; full, 
I can say, of American sympathies ; on the hope, so necessary 
to me, of my seeing again the country that has deigned, near 
half a century ago, to call me hers? 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 85 


‘7. I shall content myself, refraining from superfluous repe- 
titions, at cnce before you, sir, and this respected circle, to 
proclaim my cordial confirmation of every one of the senti- 
ments which [ have had daily opportunities publickly to utter, 
from the time when your venerable predecessor, my old brother 
in arms and friend, transmitted to me the honourable invitation 
of Congress, to this day, when you, my dear sir, whose friendly 
connexion with me dates from your earliest youth, are going 
to consign me to the protection, across the Atlantick, of the 
heroick national flag, on board the splendid ship, the name of 
which has been not the least flattering and kind among the 
numberless favours conferred upon me. 

8. God bless you, sir, and all who surround us! God bless 
the American people, each of their States, and the Federal 
Government! Accept this patriotick farewell of an overflow- 
ing heart; such will be its last throb when it ceases to beat. 


LESSON XXXII. 


Extract from an Oration deliwered at Boston, July 4, 1807. 
P. O. TuHacuer. 


1. Ir for a nation to be free and happy, it were only neces- 
sary that it should be able to boast of a republican form of 
government, we should be the only free and happy nation on 
the face of the earth. Look around you, and seek after the 
republicks of former ages. Inquire for those, on which that 
sun has shone, within the present age, as well as on our own. 

2. Where are the renowned states of Greece, so celebrated 
for their wars, their triumphs, and their dissensions? In vain 
do we seek for the living glory of Athens. Her train of ora- 
tors, poets, and philosophers; her muses, her arts, and her 
graces, have long since deserted the ruins of that celebrated city. 

3. The grandeur of Rome, which once carried in its train 
the spoils of a conquered world, has vanished like a spectre 
of the night. The constitutions of Switzerland, those varie- 
gated forms of republican liberty, which we once contemplated 


86 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


with delight, have melted like the snows which descend from 
the Alps. They have all been destroyed by party spirit, or 
have been swallowed up by the jaws of a monstrous despotism. 

4. Weare a free people. ‘There never was a period, when 
we were slaves. Our independence was founded not on the 
ruins of tyranny, but on resistance to pretensions, which would 
have ended in tyranny. The actors in the revolution knew 
how much easier it was to resist usurpation, than to demclish 
it after its establishment. But, let me ask, wherein does our 
freedom consist? In the form of government? 

5. If that is not written on our hearts, as well as on parch- 
ment, believe me, it will be but a frail tenement for the abode 
of liberty. Does it consist in your power to destroy tyranny ? 
But if, when you have deposed one tyrant, you have a heart to 
create another, think you, that the fickle goddess, whose ro- 
mantick spirit delights in the woeds as well as in the full city, 
will be proud of her votaries? Perhaps, however, it consists 
in our right to elect our own rulers. 

6. But if, in the wanton exercise of this right, we ca- 
priciously reject the old and faithful servant, whose services 
have an equal claim on our admiration and gratitude, then we 
are tyrants, and consequently we cannot be free. We are to 
treat with reverence the principles of our constitution. It is 
the government of our choice, and therefore we are not to mur- 
mur that in a republick every thing is subject to change. 

7. As wave succeeds wave, the rival factions fast press on 
each other, and each gradually sinks to the common level. 
And the day which invests a citizen with power, reminds him 
by the fate of his predecessor, that he likewise is mortal. <A 
nation which is doomed to fall, is first deprived of counsel. It 
is not strength which sustains a community ; it is not numbers, 
or wealth, or situation, but wisdom: those are all of the 
earth, this is divine. 

8. Timid counsels will soon debilitate the spirit of any 
people. They open the door for faction, and invite the am- 
bitious to seek for their own aggrandizement on the ruins of 
the general liberty. It is better that a state be surrounded by 
enemies, watching for its destruction, provided its citizens are 
united. Nothing in nature is so powerful as union. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 87 


9. The universe might be poised on a drop of water kept 
in a compact state. Nothing is so sublime, nothing so power- 
ful, as the combined energies of great minds, intent on the 
preservation of their country. They cannot be friends to 
their country, who wish, at this eventful crisis of our affairs, 
to perpetuate the bitterness of party. United, our country 
would have nothing to fear from a combined world. The 
storm might gather. ‘The thunder might roll. It might beat 
on the edifice of our independence ; but it would not fall, be- 
cause it is founded on a rock. 

10. In these solemnities, it becomes us to recollect with 
gratitude the heroes of our revolution. I see in this assembly 
some who were actors in that splendid drama. I see some, 
who, when the independence of our country was rising, like 
Venus from the froth of the sea, were present at her nativity. 
The stream of oblivion has not effaced the image of your 
illustrious compatriots, whose earthly existence is now only in 
the remembrance and gratitude of their countrymen. 

11. How often do our thoughts visit the sleeping warriour 
on the banks of the Potomack! The solemn silence of the 
scene is disturbed only by the heaving sigh and the falling tear. 
While, distant from the sacred spot, the voice of praise swells 
into loud and majestick strains, inspired by the glory of the 
father of his country. But the lapse of time admonishes me 
not to intrude on the pleasures of this day. 

12. Though to dwell on the praise of one’s own country is 
indulging a species of refined selfishness ; yet is it authorized 
by the custom of nations, and would, I doubt not, find an 
apology in your hearts. The subject has ceased to interest 
us by its novelty. An orator on these occasions may not, at 
this period, indulge the ambitious expectations of literary fame. 

13. These annual tributes are born but to die. Like the 
fruits-of the season, they perish with the day which witnessed 
their vernal bloom and ripening strength. Their author must 
derive consolation from the respect which he pays to the cus- 
tom of the times in which he lives. He must be content to 
cast his pebble on the heap which has been raised to the inde- 
pendence of his country. He must learn the little worth of 
human estimation, wnich often descends with the sun which 
saw it rise, never to rise again. 


88 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON XXXIII. 
Battle of Warsaw.—CamPBELL. 


1. Wuen leagued Oppression poured to northern wars 
Her whiskered panders and her fierce hussars, 
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn, 
Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn; 
Tumultuous horrour brooded o’er her van, 

Presaging wrath to Poland, and to man! 

2. Warsaw’s last champion, from her height surveyed, 
Wide o’er the fields, a waste of ruin laid ; 

Oh! Heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save ! 
Is there no hand on high to shield the brave ? 

Yet, though destruction sweep these lovely plains, 
Rise, fellow-men! Our country yet remains ! 

By that dread name we wave the sword on high, 
And swear for her to live! with her to die! 

3. He said, and on the rampart-heights arrayed 
His trusty warriours, few, but undismayed ; 
Firm-paced, and slow, a horrid front they form, 

Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm ; 
Low, murmuring sounds, along their banners fly ; 
Revenge or death; the watchword and reply : 
Then pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm, 
And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm ! 

4. In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few! 

From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew : 

Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of 'Time, 

Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime ; 

Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, 

Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her wo! 

Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, 
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career : 
Hope for a season, bade the world farewell, 

And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell! 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 89 


5. The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there ; 
Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air ; 
On Prague’s proud arch the fires of ruin glow, 
His blood-died waters murmuring far below ; 
The storm prevails, the rampart yields away, 
Bursts the wild cry of horrour and dismay ! 
Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall, 
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call! 
Earth shook ; red meteors flashed along the sky, 
- And conscious nature shuddered at the cry ! 
6. Departed spirits of the mighty dead! 
Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled ! 
Friends of the world! restore your swords to man, 
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van! 
Yet for Sarmatia’s tears of blood atone, 
And make her arm puissant as your own! 
Oh! once again to Freedoim’s cause return, 
Thou patriot ‘Tell; thou Bruce of Bannockburn. 


LESSON XXXIV. 
Physical and Moral Greatness of America.—Puiiurrs. 


1. Americans! you have a country vast in extent, and em- 
bracing all the varieties of the most salubrious climes; held, 
not by charters wrested from unwilling kings, but the bountiful 
gift of the Author of nature. ‘The exuberance of your popu- 
lation is daily divesting the gloomy wilderness of its rude 
attire, and splendid cities rise to cheer the dreary desert. 

2. You have a government deservedly celebrated as “ giving 
the sanctions of law to the precepts of reason ;” presenting, 
instead of the rank luxuriance of natural licentiousness, the 
corrected sweets of civil liberty. You have fought the battles 
of freedom, and enkindled that sacred flame which now glows 
with vivid fervour through the greatest empire in Europe. 

3. We indulge the sanguine hope, that her equal laws and 
virtuous conduct will hereafter afford examples of imitation to 


90 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


all surrounding nations: that the blissful period will soon 
arrive, when man shall be elevated to his primitive character ; 
when illuminated reason and regulated liberty shall once more 
exhibit him in the image of his maker; when all the inhabi- 
tants of the globe shall be freemen and fellow-citizens, and pa-. 
triotism itself be lost in universal philanthropy. 

4. Then shall volumes of incense incessantly roll from altars 
inscribed to liberty. Then shall the innumerable varieties of 
the human race unitedly ‘ worship in her sacred temple, whose 
pillars shall rest on the remotest corners of the earth, and whose 
arch wil be the vault of heaven.” 


LESSON XXXVY. 


Feelings excited by along voyage—visil lo a new continent.— 
W. Irvine. 


1. To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has 
to make is an excellent preparative. From the moment you 
lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy until you 
step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the 
bustle and novelties of another world. 

2. I have said that at sea all is vacancy. I should correct 
the expression. To one given up to day-dreaming, and fond 
of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects 
for meditation; but then they are the wonders of the deep, 
and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from 
worldly themes. 

3. I delighted to loll over the quarter railing, or climb to 
the maintop, on a calm day, and muse for hours together on 
the tranquil bosom of a summer’s sea; or to gaze upon the 
piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy 
them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of 
my own, or to watch the gentle, undulating billows, rolling 
their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores. 

4. There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and 
awe, with which I looked down from my giddy height on the 


a 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 9] 


monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols. Shoals of 
porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship ; the grampus 
slowly heaving his huge form above the surface; or the 
ravenous shark, darting like a spectre, through the blue 
waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had 
heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny 
herds that roam in the fathomless valleys; of shapeless mon- 
sters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth; and 
those wild phantasms that sweil the tales of fishermen and 
sailors. 

5. Sometimes a distant sail gliding along the edge of the 
ocean would be another theme of idle speculation. How in- 
teresting this fragment of a world hastening to rejoin the great 
mass of existence! What a glorious monument of human 
invention, that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; has 
brought the ends of the earth in communion ; has established 
an interchange of blessings, pouring into the steril regions of 
the north all the luxuries of the south; diffusing the light of 
knowledge and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus 
bound together those scattered portions of the human race, 
between which nature seemed to have thrown an insurmount- 
able barrier ! 

6. We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at 
a distance. At sea, every thing that breaks the monotony of 
the surrounding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be 
the mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked ; 
for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some 
of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent 
their being washed off by the waves. There was no trace 
by which the name of the ship could be ascertained. 

7. The wreck had evidently drifted about for many months; 
clusters of sheilfish had fastened about it, and long sea- 
weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought I, is the 
crew? ‘Their struggle has long been over; they have gone 
down amidst the roar of the tempest; their bones lie whiten- 
ing in the caverns of the deep. Silence, oblivion, like the 
waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story 
of their end. 

8. What sighs have been wafted after that ship! what 

5, 


§2 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


prayers offered up at the deserted fireside of home. How 
often have the maiden, the wife, and the mother, pored over the 
daily news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the 
deep!. How has expectation darkened into anxiety; anxiety 
into dread; and dread into despair! Alas! not one me- 
mento shall return for love to cherish. All that shall ever be 
known is, that she sailed from her port, “ and was never heard 
of more.” 

9. The sight of the wreck, as usual, gave rise to many 
dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the case in the 
evening, when the weather, which had hitherto been fair, 
began to appear wild and threatening, and gave indications of 
one of those sudden storms that wili sometimes break in upon 
the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat round the dull 
light of a lamp, in the cabin, that made the gloom more 
ghastly, every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I 
was particularly struck with a short one related by the 
captain. 

10. * As I was once sailing,” said he, “in a fine stout ship 
across the banks of Newfoundland, one of the heavy fous 
that prevail in those parts rendered it impossible for me to see 
far ahead, even in the daytime; but at night the weather was 
so thick that we could not distinguish any object at twice 
the length of our ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a 
constant watch forward to look out for fishing-smacks, which 
are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks. The wind 
was blowing a smacking breeze, and we were going at a great 
rate through the water. 

11. “Suddenly the watch gave the alarm of ‘a sail ahead ! 
but it was scarcely uttered till we were upon her. She wasa 
small schooner at anchor, with her broadside towards us. 
The crew were all asleep, and had neglected to hoist a light. 
We struck her just a-mid-ships. The force, the size, and 
weight of our vessel, bore her down below the waves ; we 
passed over her and were hurried on our course. 

12. “ As the crashing wreck was sinking beneath us, I had 
a glimpse of two or three half-naked wretches, rushing from 
her cabin; they had just started from their beds to be swal- 
lowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning cry 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 93 


mingling with the wind. The blast that bore it to our ears, 
swept us out of all farther hearing. I shall never forget 
that cry! 

13. “ It was some time before we could put the ship about, 
she was under such headway. We returned as nearly as we 
could guess, to the place where the smack was anchored. We 
cruised about for several hours in the dense fog. We fired 
several guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo of any 
survivers ; but all was silent; we never heard nor saw any 
thing of them more !” 

14. It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry of 
“land!” was given from the mast-head. I question whether 
Columbus, when he discovered the new world, felt a more 
delicious throng of sensations than rush into an American’s 
bosom when he first comes in sight of Europe. There is a 
volume of associations in the very name. It is the land of 
promise, teeming with every thing of which his childhood has 
heard, or on which his studious ears have pondered. 

15. From that time until the period of arrival, it was all 
feverish excitement. The ships of war that prowled like 
guardian giants round the coast; the headlends of Ireland, 
stretching out into the channel; the Welsh mountains, towering 
into the clouds; all were objects of intense interest. As we 
sailed up the Mersey, I reconnoitred the shore with a tele- 
scope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cotiages, with their 
trim shrubberies and green grass-plots. I saw the moulder- 
ing ruins of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper spire of 
a village church rising from the brow of a neighbouring hill ; 
all were characteristick of England. 

16. The tide and wind were so favourable, that the ship 
was enabled to come at once at the pier. It was thronged 
with people ; some, idle lookers-on; others, eager expectants 
of friends or relatives. I could distinguish the merchant to 
whom the ship belonged. I knew him by his calculating 
brow and restless air. 

17. His hands were thrust into his pockets; he was whis- 
tling thoughtfully, and walking to and fro, a small space having 
been accorded to him by the crowd, in deference» to his tem- 
porary importance. There were repeated cheerings and salu- 


— 


94 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


tations interchanged between the shore and ship, as friends 
happened to recognise each other. 

18. But I particularly noted one young woman, of humble 
dress, but interesting demeanour. She was leaning forward 
from among the crowd; her eye hurried over the ship as it 
neared the shore, to catch some wished for countenance. 
She seemed disappointed and agitated, when I heard a faint 
voice call her name. It was from a poor sailor, who had been 
ill all the voyage, and had excited the sympathy of every one 
on board. 

19. When the weather was fine, his. messmates had spread 
a mattress for him on deck in the shade; but of late his 
illness had so increased, that he had taken to his hammock, 
and only breathed a wish that he might see his wife before 
he died. 

20. He had been helped on deck as we came up the river, 
and was now leaning against the shrouds, with a countenance 
so wasted, so pale, and so ghastly, that it is no wonder even 
the eye of affection did not recognise him. But at the sound 
of his voice, her eye darted on his features, it read at once a 
whole volume of sorrow; she clasped her hands, uttered a 
faint shriek, and stood wringing them in silent agony. 

21. All was now hurry and bustle. The meetings of ac- 
quaintance ; the greetings of friends; the salutations of men 
of business. I alone was solitary and idle. I had no friend 
to meet, no cheering to receive. I stepped upon the land of 
my forefathers ; but felt that I was a stranger in the land. 


LESSON XXXVI. 
Governments of Will, and Governments of Law.—WayLanp. 


1, Tue various forms of government under which society 
has existed, may, with sufficient accuracy, be reduced to two ; 
governments of will, and governments of law. 

2. A government of will supposes that there are created 
two classes of society, the rulers and the ruled, each possessed 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 95 


of different and very dissimilar rights. It supposes all power 
to be vested, by divine appointment, in the hands of the rulers ; 
that they alone may say under what form of governments the 
people shall live ; that law is nothing other than an expression 
of their will; and that it is the ordinance of Heaven that such 
a constitution should continue unchanged to the remotest gener- 
ations ; and that to all this the people are bound to yield pas- 
sive and implicit obedience. 

3. Thus say the Congress of Sovereigns, which has been 
styled the Holy Alliance: ‘ All useful and necessary changes 
ought only to emanate from the freewill and intelligent convic- 
tion of those, whom God has made responsible for power.” 
You are well aware, that on principles such as these rest most 
of the governments of continental Europe. 

4. The government of law rests upon principles precisely 
the reverse of all this. It supposes that there is but one class 
of society, and that this class is the people; that all men are 
created equal, and, therefore, that civil institutions are volun- 
tary associations, of which the sole object should be to promote 
the happiness of the whole. It supposes the people to have 
a perfect right to select that form of government under which 
they shall live, and to modify it, at any subsequent time, as 
they shall think desirable. 

5. Supposing all power to emanate from the people, it con- 
siders the authority of rulers purely a delegated authority,-to 
be exercised in all cases according to a written code, which 
code is nothing more than an authentick expression of the 
people’s will. It teaches that the ruler is nothing more than 
the intelligent organ of enlightened publick opinion, and de- 
clares that, if he ceases to be so, he shall be a ruler no longer. 

6. Under such a government may it with truth be said of 
Law, that “ her seat is the bosom” of the people, “ her voice 
the harmony” of society; “all men, in every station, do her 
reverence; the very least as feeling her care, and the very 
_ greatest as not exempted from her power; and, though each 
in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, ad- 
- wniring her as the mother of their peace and joy.” I need not 
sdd, that our own is an illustrious example of the government 
bf law. 


96 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


7. Now which of these two is the right notion of govern- 
ment, I need not stay to inquire. It is sufficient for my pur- 
pose to remark, that, whenever men have become enlightened 
by the general diffusion of intelligence, they have universally 
preferred the government of law. The doctrines of what has 
been called legitimacy have not been found to stand the scru- 
tiny of unrestrained examination. And, besides this, the love 
of power is as inseparable from the human bosom as the love 
of life. 

8. Hence men will never rest satisfied with any civil insti- 
tutions, which confer exclusively upon a part of society that 
power, which they believe should justly be vested in the whole ; 
and hence it is evident that no government can be secure from 
the effects of increasing intelligence, which is not conformed 
in its principles to the nature of the human heart, and which 
does not provide for the exercise of this principle, so insepar- 
able from the nature of man. 


LESSON XXXVII. 
The Gamester.—Gopwin, 


1. No man who has not felt, can possibly image to him- 
self the tortures of a gamester; of a gamester like me, who 
played for the improvement of his fortune; who played with 
the recollection of a wife and children, dearer to him than the 
blood that bubbled through the arteries of his heart; who might 
be said, like the savages of ancient Germany, to make these 
relations the stake for which he threw; who saw all my own 
happiness and all theirs, through the long vista of life, depend- 
ing on the turn of a card! 

2. All bodily racks and torments are nothing, compared 
with certain states of the human mind. The gamester would 
be the most pitiable, if he were not the most despicable crea- 
ture that exists. Arrange ten bits of painted paper in a cer- 
tain order, and he is ready to go wild with the extravagance of 
his joy. He is only restrained by some remains of shame, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 97 


from dancing about the room, and displaying the vileness of 
his spirit by every sort of freak and absurdity. 

3. At another time, when his hopes have been gradually 
worked up into a paroxysm, an unexpected turn arrives, and 
he is made the most miserable of men. Never shall I cease 
to remember the sensation I have repeatedly felt, in the instan- 
taneous sinking of the spirits, the conscious fire that spread 
over my visage, the anger in my eye, the burning dryness of 
my throat, the sentiment that in a moment was ready to over- 
whelm with curses, the cards, the stake, my own existence, 
and all mankind. 

4. How every malignant and insufferable passion seemed 
to rush upon my soul! What nights of dreadful solitude and 
despair did I repeatedly pass during the progress of my ruin ! 
It was the night of the soul! My mind was wrapped in a 
gloom that could not be pierced! My heart was oppressed 
with a weight, that no power, human or divine, was equal to 
remove ! 

5. My eyelids seemed to press downward with an invinci- 
ble burden! My eyeballs were ready to start and burst their 
sockets! I lay motionless, the victim of ineffable hoerrour ! 
The whole endless night seemed to be filled with one vast, ap- 
palling, immoveable idea! It was a stupor, more insupporta- 
ble and tremendous, than the utmost whirl of pain, or the 
fiercest agony of exquisi(e perception. 


LESSON XXXVIII. 
Broken Friendship.—Rocuester Gem. 


1. Wuen o’er the links of Friendship’s chain, 
Suspicion’s dark, corroding stain 
Is breathed from lips whose hidden guile 
Lies masked beneath a friendly smile ; 
Though formed of gold that mocks decay, 
Such mildew steals its strength away ; 
Till, wasting slow, it parts at last, 
And severs hearts it once joined fast. 


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NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


2. When all the gentler feelings lend 
Their sweetest influence, to blend 
Two kindred spirits into one, 
As mingling streams together run, 
How coldly cruel must he be 
Who turns their love to enmity, 
By secret whispers, dark surmise, 
Or open and malicious lies ! 


3. And those there are, nor are they few, 
Who love to poison friendships true, 
Who, envying, strive to blast the joys 
Which spring from love that never cloys. 
Such should not die; but still live on, 
When all that sweetens life is gone ; 
Without one cheering gleam to bless 
Their path of lonely wretchedness ! 


4. But sometimes truest friends will part, 
And coldness fill each altered heart, 
For some unmeant and light offence 
That wounds the nice, exquisite sense 
Which minds of finest tone possess ; 
Keenly alive to injuries ; 
Some word, perhaps, at random spoken, 
Or slight neglect, their love has broken! 


5. How sad to mark the averted eye, 
Once bright with kindly sympathy ; 
To feel affection’s tide has changed, 
And find some valued friend estranged ! 
Of all the pangs that rend the heart, 
Scarce one can cause a keener smart ; 
But proudly scorning to complain, 
It silently endures its pain. 


6. Throughout my brief but changeful life, 
With errours and misfortunes rife ; 
I ardently have sought to find, 
In the world’s crowd, some kindred mind ; 
Some one with thoughts and feelings pure, 
Who virtue loves, though follies lure ; 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 99 


In whose congenial breast to pour 
Of my heart’s wealth, the hoarded store. 


7. Though baffled oft, not wholly vain 
That search has been ; J still retain 
In fond remembrance, some whose kind 
And gentle voices, like the wind 
Breathed through the Evolian harp at even, 
Awakening strains that seem of Heaven; 
Will thrill the chords of memory’s lyre, 
*Till reason, feeling, life expire ! 

8. But I have learned the bitter truth, 
Which early chills the hopes of youth, 
That it is wisdom to repress 
The gushing tide of tenderness 
Which the young soul would lavish round, 
Like wasted dews on barren ground ; 
Lest it diffuse its richest showers 
On worthless weeds instead of flowers! 


LESSON XXXIX. 
The Indian Summer of New England.—F RrEeman. 


1. THe scuthwest is the most pleasant wind which blows 
in New England. In the month of October, in particular, 
after the frosts which commonly take place at the end of Sep- 
tember, it frequently produces two or three weeks of fair 
weather, in which the air is perfectly transparent, and the 
clouds, which float in the sky of the purest azure, are adorned 
with brilliant colours. 

2. If at this season a man of an affectionate heart and 
ardent imagination should visit the tombs of his friends, the 
southwestern breezes, as they breathe through the glowing 
trees, would seem to him almost articulate. Though he might 
not be so rapt in enthusiasm as to fancy that the spirits of his 
ancestors were whispering in his ear, yet he would at least 
imagine that he heard the small voice of God. 

2 


* 


100 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


3. This charming season is called the Indian Summer, a 
name which is derived from the natives, who believe that it is 
caused by a wind, which comes immediately from the court of 
their great and benevolent god Cautantowwit, or the south- 
western god, the God who is superiour to all other beings, 
who sends them every blessing which they enjoy, and to whom 
the souls of their fathers go after their decease. 


LESSON XL. 


Character of the Puritan Fathers of New England.— 
GREENWOOD. 


1. One of the most prominent features, which distinguished 
our forefathers, was their determined resistance to oppression. 
They seemed born and brought up, for the high and special 
purpose of showing to the world, that the civil and religious 
rights of man, the rights of self-government, of conscience 
and independent thought, are not merely things to be talked 
of, and woven into theories, but to be adopted with the whole 
strength and ardour of the mind, and felt in the profoundest 
recesses of the heart, and carried out into the general life, and 
made the foundation of practical usefulness, and visible beauty, 
and true nobility. 

2. Liberty, with them, was an object of too serious desire 
and.stern resolve, to be personified, allegorized, and enshrined. 
They made no goddess of it, as the ancients did; they had 
no time or inclination for such trifling ; they felt that liberty 
was the simple birthright of every human creature ;_ they called 
it so; they claimed it as such; they reverenced and held it 
fast as the inalienable gift of the Creator, which was not to be 
surrendered to power, or sold for wages. 

3. It was theirs, as men; without it, they did not esteem 
themselves men; more than any other privilege or possession, 
it was essential to their happiness, for it was essential to their 
original nature ; and therefore they preferred it above wealth, 
and ease, and country; and, that they might enjoy and exer- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 101 


cise it fully, they forsook houses, and lands, and kindred, their 
homes, their native soil, and their fathers’ graves. 

4. They left all these; they left England, which, whatever 
it might have been called, was not to them a land of freedom ; 
they launched forth on the pathless ocean, the wide, fathom- 
less ocean, soiled not by the earth beneath and bounded, all 
round and above, only by heaven; and it seemed to them like 
that better and sublimer freedom, which their country knew 
not, but of which they had the conception and image in their 
hearts ; and, after a toilsome and painful voyage, they came 
to a hard and wintry coast, unfruitful and desolate, but un- 
guarded and boundless; its calm silence interrupted not the 
ascent of their prayers; it had no eyes to watch, no ears to 
hearken, no tongues to report of them; here again there was 
an answer to their souls’ desire, and they were satisfied, and 
gave thanks; they saw that they were free, and the desert 
smiled. 

5. I am telling an old tale; but it is one which must be 
told, when we speak of those men. It is to be added, that 
they transmitted their principles to their children, and that, peo- 
pled by such a race, our country was always free. So long 
as its inhabitants were unmolested by the mother country in 
the exercise of their important rights, they submitted to the form 
of English government ; but when those rights were invaded, 
they spurned even the form away. 

6. This act was the revolution, which came of course, and 
spontaneously, and had nothing in it of the wonderful or un- 
foreseen. The wonder would have been, if it had not occurred. 
It was indeed a happy and glorious event, but by no means 
unnatural; and [ intend no slight to the revered actors in the 
revolution, when I assert, that their fathers before them were 
as free as they ; every whit as free. 

7. The principles of the revolution were not the suddenly 
acquired property of a few bosoms; they were abroad in the 
land in the ages before ; they had always been taught, like the 
truths of the Bible; they had descended from father to son, 
down from those primitive days, when the pilgrim, established 
in his simple dwelling, and seated at his blazing fire, piled high 
from the forest which shaded his door, repeated to his listening 


102 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


children the story of his wrongs and his resistance, and bade 
them rejoice, though the wild winds and the wild beasts were 
howling without, that they had nothing to fear from great men’s 
oppression and the bishops’ rage. 

8. Here were the beginnings of the revolution. Every 
settler’s hearth was a school of independence; the scholars 
were apt, and the lessons sunk deeply ; and thus it came that 
our country was always free ; it could not be other than free. 

9. As deeply seated as was the principle of liberty and re- 
sistance to arbitrary power, in the breasts of the Puritans, it 
was not more so than their piety and sense of religious obli- 
gation. ‘They were emphatically a people, whose God was 
the Lord. Their form of government was as strictly theo- 
cratical, if direct communication be excepted, as was that of 
the Jews; insomuch that it would be difficult to say where 
there was any civil authority among them entirely distinct from 
ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 

10. Whenever a few of them settled a town, they imme- 
diately gathered themselves into a church; and their elders 
were magistrates, and their code of laws was the Pentateuch. 
These were forms, it is true, but forms which faithfully indi- 
cated principles and feelings ; for no people could have adopted 
such forms, who were not thoroughly imbued with the spirit, 
and bent on the practice, of religion. 

11. God was their King; and they regarded him as truly 
and literally so, as if he had dwelt in a visible palace in the 
midst of their state. They were his devoted, resolute, hum- 
ble subjects; they undertook nothing which they did not beg 
of him to prosper; they accomplished nothing without ren- 
dering to him the praise ; they suffered nothing without carry- 
ing up their sorrows to his throne ;_ they ate nothing which they 
did not implore him to bless. 

12. Their piety was not merely external; it was sincere ; 
it had the proof of a good tree, in bearing good fruit; it pro- 
duced and sustained a strict morality. ‘Their tenacious purity 
of manners and speech obtained for them, in the mother coun- 
try, their name of Puritans; which, though given in derision, 
was as honourable a one as was ever bestowed by man on man. 

13. That there were hypocrites among them, is not to be 


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doubted ; but they were rare; the men who voluntarily exiled 
themselves to an unknown coast, and endured there every toil 
and hardship for conscience’ sake, and that they might serve 
God in their own manner, were not likely to set conscience at 
defiance, and make the service of God a mockery ;_ they were 
not likely to be, neither were they, hypocrites. I do not know 
that it would be arrogating too much for them to say, that, on 
the extended surface of the globe, there was not a single 
community of men to be compared with them, in the respects 
of deep religious impressions, and an exact performance of 
moral duty. 4 


LESSON XLI. 
The Influence of Woman.—Rocuester Gem. 


1. Tue influence of woman in the scale of being, is, I 
believe, in general, wofully underrated. It is considered by 
many, by far too many, that woman is of an inferiour order 
of intellect, of minor capacity ; in short, literally, the “ weaker 
sex,” in other senses than a physical one. 

2. I happened to be present not long since at a Debating 
Society, ina New England village, where this question was 
under discussion ; ** Who contributes most to the formation 
of national character, Man or Woman?” It was decided 
strangely enough in favour of Man. 

3. Those who partook in the debate, it seemed to me, did 
not assume, on either side, the appropriate ground in its de- 
tails. While the discussion was pending, the following 
thoughts passed through my mind; and I send” them for 
publication in your valuable Journal, which I am glad to 
learn, for their sakes, finds much favour with the ** women kind.” 

4. If to Man it be given to sway the destinies of empires ; 
to perform deeds which shall mark the age in which he lives ; 
to carry his name down the stream of time, to be repeated 
and dwelt upon by those who look back upon his era as a 
period nearer the outer verge of the distant past, it is given to 


104 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Woman, after all, so to shape that hero’s early history ; to lay 
the groundwork of his career, that he may accomplish all this 
fame, and attain this chief eminence. 

5. The influence of women is felt, not alone, although it 
may be mainly, in the gentler attributes of the heart. T hough 
not formed by nature for the endurance of toil, and the bra- 
ving of danger, they have hearts for the severest of the one, 
and the ‘thickest front” of the other. Who can read the 
records of Ancient and Modern History, and not admit that 
they are replete with examples of the truth of this remark ? 

6. From the Roman Daughter, and the Mother of the 
Gracchii, down to the Sisters of Charity, in our own day and our 
own country, we have seen WomeN, when danger threatened, 
animating the brave, and walking themselves where the arrows 
of death, whether of battle or of pestilence, fell thickest and 
fastest. Who has forgotten the five hundred Polish matrons, 
who. marched to the defence of Praga, with arms in their 
hands, and received, with their husbands, the dreadful charge 
of their adversaries, as they fell, contending for their firesides 
and their little ones ? 

7. They counted it joy to drain the maternal heart and 
bosom of its vital current in defence of their liberty and theiz 
offspring. Not less familiar is the history of the brave fe- 
males, who, “ foremost struggling fell,” during the Revolution 
of the Three Days in France. Thousands of instances of 
individual female bravery might be cited ; but they are too 
numerous, and too familiar to the aéocral reader, to need a 
particular reference. 

8. Without, therefore, dwelling farther upon the sterner 
qualities of women, let us glance briefly at those other more 
commomyyirtues and emotions, to which, in a great measure, 
even t owe their origin. 

9. It has appeared to me, that the influence of woman, 
before she becomes a wife ora mother, is too lightly regarded. 
I will suppose a young man, whose habits may have a tendency 
to carelessness of manner, to looseness, to vulgarity, and even 
dissipation. He becomes suddenly enamoured of an amiable 
and lovely female, to whom he knows his propensities are not 
agreeable. How sudden and effectual is this check ! 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 105 


10. He avoids and resists the tendency of his natural bias. 
His regard for Woman induces him to bend to the influence 
of her better and purer feelings, and her more refined taste. 
‘Looking at ihis simple fact, how many thousand youne MEN 
have been saved through the power of that mingled refinement 
and goodness, with which the character of a virtuous female 
is endowed. 

11. But, effective and beneficial as is the influence of a 
young unmarried female, it is as dust in the balance compared 
with the influence of the wife over the husband, or the mother 
over her offspring. There are very few who will not realize 
the influence of the last; I doubt whether any under whose 
eye these hurried remarks may chance to fall, but can glance 
back, from advanced youth, middle age, or from “ the declivity 
of years,” to the period of their childhood, and date the found- 
ation of those principles, to the effects of which they look 
along the landmarks of 'Time with delight and complacency ; 
to the kind efforts and persevering tenderness which none but a 
mother can exercise, and the deep springs of which none but 
a mother can know. 

12. That distinguished female, Mrs. Sigourney, herself a 
noble example of an American mother, and the exaltation of 
female intellect, has illustrated the influence of the mother in 
a sweet and touching poem. It represents an old man ad- 
dressing a group of children. He tells them that, like them, 
he too had once a mother, who hung over his pillow, kissed 
the tear-drops from his eyes, and “ taught his faltering tongue.” 
She was accustomed to place her hand upon his young head, 
and, directing him to clasp his own little hands together, kneel 
down and pray with him. 

13.. In process of time his mother died. He out 
into the world, and mingled with its busy throng. was 
lured by pleasure, and “ Vice spread her meshes at his side ;” 
but he resisted them all. And why? He tells us, that his 
memory always carried him back to the days of his youth, 
when, like the “ candle of the Lord,” the guiding lamp of his 
mother’s watchful tenderness shone upon his path, and by its 
light he walked through darkness. 

14. He remembered, in all time of tribulation and of 


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106 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


temptation, how his mother was wont to bend his little knees, 
as she knelt by his side in prayer, and place her hand upon 
his head, and beseech his Maker and Preserver to keep him 
from temptation, and deliver him from evil. 

15. Whenever he was tempted, his conscience warned him 
to flee from that which was evil, and cling to that which was 
good. His mother’s hand was still upon his head ; 


And with it breathed a voice of prayer, 
As from the lowly sod, 
*© My son, my only son, beware ! 
Sin not against thy God!” 


16. A similar train of thought is very feelingly and touch- 
ingly expressed, by a New England poet: 


‘“ My mother’s voice! How often creeps 

Its cadence o’er my lonely hours, 
Like healing sent on wings of sleep, 

Or dew to the unconscious flowers. 
I can’t forget her melting prayer, 

Even while my pulses madly fly ; 
And in the still, unbroken air, 

Her gentle tones come stealing by; 
And years, and sin, and manhood flee, 
Aud leave me at my mother’s knee !” 


17. Let no one detract from the influence of woman. As 
lovers they exert, as we have shown, and as none will dis- 
pute, an immense power. 

18. As companions for life, they sooth our sorrows, and 
give a deeper zest to the purer enjoyments of our exist- 
ence. As mothers, their influence into “ far years extends ;” 
and it glows and brightens in maturity and declining years. 

19 ! Let it no longer be said, that she who was the 
first ee cross, and last at the tomb of the Redeemer of the 
world ; whose whole life-is often as perfect an imitation as 
poor humanity can attain to, of His example who delighted in 
“doing good as he had opportunity ;” let it not be said 
that Woman is of minor influence in the destinies of nations, 
and in promoting the good of mankind, 


NORTH AMERICAN’ READER. 107 


LESSON XLII. 


Duty of Educating the Poor.—Grerenwoop. 


Extract from a Sermon delivered on the twenty-fifth Anniversary of the 
Boston Female Asylum, 


1. Even at this enlightened day it is not entirely a super- 
fluous task to vindicate the claims of the offspring of the poor, 
of the poorest, of the vilest, to that mental cultivation, which 
it is in the power of every community to bestow. ‘The old 
notion is not yet stowed away among the forgotten rubbish of 
old times, that those who were born to labour and servitude 
were born for nothing but Jabour and servitude, and that the 
less they knew, the better they would obey; and that the only 
instruction which was necessary or safe for them, was that 
which would teach them to move like automatons, precisely as 
those above them pulled the strings. 

2. I say, we still hear this principle asserted, though per- 
haps in more guarded and indefinite language ; and a more 
selfish, pernicious, disgraceful principle, in whatever terms it 
may be muffled up, never insulted human nature, nor degraded 
human society. It is the leading principle of despotism, the 
worst feature of aristocracy, and a profane contradiction of 
that indubitable Word, which has pronounced all men to be 
brethren, and, in every thing which relates to their common 
nature, equal. 

3. I have said, that even the children of the vilest and low- 
est portion of the community, shared in the gener it to 
the advantages of education. Their claim cecal shee 
liar title to our consideration. Some have spoken, as if such 
were beyond or beneath our assistance, and would bring con- 
tamination from their birthplace. ‘Their lot is in the region 
of irreclaimable wickedness, it is said; and as their parents 
are, so are they destined to become. Destined! and so they 
are, if you will not save them. 

4. 'They are destined, and for ever chained down, to a state 


108 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


of moral loathsomeness, in which degradation seems to be 
swallowed with the food, and vice breathed in with the air. 
And shall they stay in such a pit of darkness? Is not their 
situation the strongest possible appeal which can be made to 
your pity, and your generosity, and your sense of justice, and 
your love of good? 

5. Does it not call on you, most loudly and imperatively, to 
pluck these brands from the burning, ere yet they have been 
scorched too deeply and darkly by the flame? Nothing is 
more probable than that such children may be preserved to 
virtue by a timely interference: nothing is more certain than 
that they will be lost if they remain. I know of no case 
which promises such ainple suecess and reward to the spirited 
efforts of benevolence, as this. 

6. Vice may be cut off, in a great measure, of her natural 
increase, by the adoption of her offspring isto the family of 
virtue ; and though it is true that the empire of guilt receives 
constant emigrations and fresh accessions of strength, from 
all the regions of society, yet it is equally as true, that they 
whose only crime it is that they were born within its confines, 
may be snatched away and taught another allegiance, before 
they have become familiar with its language, its customs, and 
its corruptions, and have vowed a dreadful fidelity to its laws. 

7. I deny not that a nation may become powerful, victori- 
ous, renowned, wealthy, and full of great men, even though it 
should neglect the education of the humbler classes of its 
population; but I do deny, that it can ever become a happy 
or a truly prosperous nation, till all its children are taught of 
the Lord. 

8. To say nothing of the despotism of the East, look at 
the ki ns of Europe, with their battles, and their alliances, 
and MR soos and gaudy ceremonies, and their imposing 
clusters of high titles and celebrated names; and after this 
showy phantasmagoria has passed away, mark the condition 
of the majority; observe their superstition, their slavishness, 
their sensual enjoyments, their limited range of thought, their 
almost brutalized existence; mark this, and say whether a 
heavenly peace is among them. 

9. Alas! they know not the things which belong to their 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 109 


peace, nor are their rulers desirous that they should know, but 
rather prefer that they should live on in submissive ignorance, 
that they may be at all times ready to swell the+trains of their 
masters’ pride, and be sacrificed by hecatombs to their masters’ 
ambition. 

10. ar different were the views of those gifted patriarchs 
who founded a new empire here. They were determined that 
all their children should be taught of the Lord; and side by 
side with the humble dwellings which sheltered their heads 
from the storms of a strange world, arose. the school-house 
and the house of God. And ever after the result-has been 
peace, great, unexampled peace ; peace to the few, who grad- 
ually encroached on the primeval forests of the land, and 
peace to the millions, who have now spread themselves abroad 
in it from border to border. 

11. In the strength and calm resolution of that peace, they 
stood up once, and shook themselves free from the rusted fet- 
ters of the world ; and in the beauty and dignity of that peace, 
they stand up now, self-governed, orderly, and independent, a 
wonder to the nations. 

12. If a stranger should inquire of me the principal cause 
and source of this greatness of my country, would I bid him 
look on the ocean widely loaded with our merchandise, and 
proudly ranged by our navy; or on the lands where it is gir- 
dled by roads, and scored by canals, and burdened with the 
produce of our industry and ingenuity? Would I bid him 
look on these things as the springs of our prosperity? Indeed 
I would not. Nor would I show him our colleges and literary 
institutions, for he can see nobler ones elsewhere. 

13. I would pass all these by, and would lead him out by. 
some winding highway among the hills and woods ; when 
the cultivated spots grew small and infrequent, and ouses 
became few and scattered, and a state of primitive nature 
seemed to be immediately before us, I would stop in some 
sequestered spot, and, directed by a steady hum, like that of 
bees, I would point out to him a lowly building, hardly better 
than a shed, but full of blooming, happy children, collected to- 
gether from the remote and unseen farmhouses, conning over 
their various tasks, or reading, with a voice of reverential 
monotony, a portion of the Word of God. 


110 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


14. I would bid him note, that even here, in the midst of 
poverty and sterility, was a specimen of the thousand nur- 
series in which all our children are taught of the Lord, and 
_ formed, some to legislate for the land, and all to understand its 
constitution and laws, to maintain their unspotted birthright, 
and contribute to the great aggregate of the intelligence, the 
morality, the power and peace, of this mighty commonwealth. 


LESSON XLII. 
The Last Days of Herculaneum.—Scrar Book. 


1. A creat city; situated amidst all that nature could cre- 
ate of beauty and of profusion, or art collect of science and 
magnificence; the growth of many ages; the residence of 
enlightened multitudes ; the scene of splendour, and festivity, 
and happiness; in one moment withered as by a spell; its 
palaces, its streets, its temples, its gardens, “ glowing with 
eternal spring,” and its inhabitants in the full enjoyment of all 
life’s blessings, obliterated from their very place in creation, 
not by war, or famine, or disease, or any of the natural causes 
of destruction to which earth had been accustomed; but in a 
single night, as if by magick, and amid the conflagration, as it 
were, of nature itself, presented a subject on which the wild- 
est imagination might grow weary without even equalling the 
grand and terrible reality. = 

2. The eruption of Vesuvius, by which Herculaneum and 
Pompeii were overwhelmed, has been chiefly described to us 
in the ae" of Pliny the younger to Tacitus, giving an ac- 
count of fis uncle’s fate, and the situation of the writer and 
his mother. The elder Pliny had just returned from the bath, 
and was retired to his study, when a small speck or cloud, 
which seemed to ascend from Mount Vesuvius, attracted his 
attention. 

3. This cloud gradually increased, and at length assumed 
the shape of a pine tree, the trunk of earth and vapour, and 
the leaves “red cinders.” Pliny ordered his galley, and, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 111 


urged by his philosophick spirit, went forward to inspect the 
phenomenon. Ju a short time, however, philosophy gave 
way to humanity, and he zealously and adventurously em- 
ployed his galley in saving the inhabitants of the various 
beautiful villas which studded that enchanting coast. 

4. Among others he went to the assistance of his friend 
Pomponianus, who was then at Stabie. The storm of fire, 
and the tempest of the earth, increased; and the wretched 
inhabitants were obliged, by the continual rocking of their 
houses, to rush out into the fields with pillows tied-down by 
napkins upon their heads, as their sole defence against the 
shower of stones which fell on them. 

5. This, in the course of nature, was in the middle of the 
day; but a deeper darkness than that of a winter night had 
closed around the ill-fated inmates of Herculaneum. This 
artificial darkness continued for three days and nights, and 
when, at length, the sun again appeared over the spot where 
Herculaneum stood, his rays fell upon an ocean of lava! 

6. There was neither tree, nor shrub, nor field, nor house, 
nor living creature ; nor visible remnant of what human hands 
had reared; there was nothing to be seen but one black ex- 
tended surface, still streaming with mephitick vapour, and 
heaved into calcined waves by the operation of fire and the 
undulations of the earthquake! Pliny was found dead upon 
the seashore, stretched upon a cloth which had been spread 
for him, where it was conjectured he had perished early, his 
corpulent and apoplectick habit rendering him an easy prey to 
the suffocating atmosphere. 


Y 


LESSON XLIV. Pm) 


Peace and War.—Suettey. 


1. How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh 
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening’s ear, 
Were discord to the speaking quietude 
That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven’s ebon vault, 


112 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Studded with stars unutierably bright, 
Through which the moon’s unclouded grandeur rolls, 
_ Seems like a canopy which Love had spread 
To curtain her sleeping world. 
Pe Yon gentle hills, 
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow ; 
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend 
So stainless, that their white and glittering spires 
Tinge not the moon’s pure beam ; yon castled steep, 
Whose banner hangeth o’er the time-worn tower 
So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it 
A metaphor of peace ; all form a scene 
Where musing solitude might love to lift 
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness ; 
Where silence, undisturbed, might watch alone, 
So cold, so bright, so still. 

3. Ah! whence yon glare, 
That fires the arch of heaven? That dark red smoke, 
Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched 
In darkness, and the pure and spangling snow 
Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round ! 
Hark to that roar, whose swift and deafening peals 
In countless echoes through the mountains ring, 
Starting pale Midnight on her starry throne! 

4. Now swells the intermingling din; the jar, 
Frequent and frightful, of the bursting bomb ; 

The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout, 
The ceaseless clangour, and the rush of men 
Inebriate with rage: loud, and more loud, 

The discord grows, till pale death shuts the scene, 
And o’er the conqueror and the conquered draws 
His cold and bloody shroud. 

5. Of allthe men _ 
Whom day’s departing beam saw blooming there, 

In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts 
That beat with i oe life at sunset there, 
How few survive, how few are beating now! 
All is deep silence, like the fearful calm 

That slumbers in the storm’s portentous pause $ 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 113 


Save when the frantick wail of widowed love 
Comes shuddering on the blast, or the isint moan, 
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay, 
Wrapped round its struggling powers. 

6. The gray morn 
Dawns on the mournful scene ; the sulphureous smoke 
Before the icy wind slow rolls away, 
And the bright beams of frosty morning dance 
Along the spangling snow. ‘There tracks of blood, 
Even to the forest’s depth, and scattered arms, 
And lifeless warriours, whose hard lineaments 
Death’s self could change not, mark the dreadful path 
Of the outsallying victors : far behind, 
Black ashes note where their proud city stood. 
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen; 
Each tree, which guards its darkness from the day, 
Waves o’er a warriour’s tomb. 


LESSON XLV. 
Advice to the Young.—Cuannino. 


1. Youna man, remember that the only test of goodness, 
virtue, is moral strength, self-denying energy. You have 
generous and honourable feelings, you scorn mean actions, 
your heart beats quick at the sight or hearing of courageous, 
disinterested deeds, and all these are interesting qualities ; 
but, remember, they are the gifts of nature, the endowments of 
your susceptible age. They are not virtue. 

2. God and the inward monitor ask for more. The ques- 
tion is, do you strive to confirm, into permanent principles, the 
generous sensibilities of the heart? Are you watchful to 
suppress the impetuous emotions, the resentments, the selfish 
passionateness, which are warring against your honourable 
feelings? Especially do you subject to your moral and reli- 
gious convictions, the love of pleasure, the appetites, the pas- 
sions, which form the great trials of youthful virtue ? 


114 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


3. Here is the field of conflict to which youth is summoned. 
Trust not to occasional impulses of beneyolence, to constitu- 
tional courage, frankness, kindness, if you surrender your- 
selves basely to the temptations of your age. No man who 
has made any observation of life, but will tell you how often 
he has seen the promise of youth blasted ; intellect, genius, 
honourable feeling, kind affection, overpowered and almost 
extinguished, through the want of moral strength, through a 
tame yielding to pleasure and the passions. Place no trust in 
your good propensities, unless these are fortified, and upheld, 
and improved, by moral energy and self-control. 

4. To all of us, in truth, the same lesson comes. If any 
man will be Christ’s disciple, sincerely good, and worthy to be 
named among the friends of virtue, if he will have inward 
peace and the consciousness of progress towards Heaven, he 
must deny himself, he must take the cross, and follow in the 
renunciation of every gain and pleasure inconsistent with the 


will of God. 


LESSON XLVI. 


Extract from a Speech, on the Trial of Aaron Burr, for 
High Treason.— Wirt. 


I. A PLAIN man, who knew nothing of the curious transmu- 
tations which the wit of man can work, would be very apt to 
wonder by what kind of legerdemain Aaron Burr had con- 
trived to shuffle himself down to the bottom of the pack as an 
accessary, and turn up poor Blannerhassett as principal in this 
treason. It is an honour, [ dare say, for which Mr. Blanner- 
hassett is by no means anxious; one which he has never dis- 
puted with Colonel Burr, and which, I am persuaded, he would 
be as little inclined to dispute on this occasion, as on any other. 

2. Since, however, the modesty of Colonel Burr declines 
the first rank, and seems disposed to force Mr. Blannerhassett 
into it in spite of his blushes, let us compare the cases of the 
two men, and settle this question of precedence between 


- NORTH AMERICAN READER. 115 


them. It may save a great deal of troublesome ceremony 
hereafter. 

3. In making this comparison, sir, I shall speak of the two 
men, and of the part they bore, as I believe it to exist, and to 
be substantially capable of proof: although the court has 
already told us, that as this is a motion to exclude all evidence 
generally, we have a right, in resisting it, to suppose the evi- 
dence which is behind, strong enough to prove any thing and 
every thing compatible with the fact of Burr’s absence from 
the island. If it will be more agreeable to the feelings of 
the prisoner to consider the parallel which I am about to run, 
or rather the contrast which | am about to exhibit, as a fiction, 
he is at liberty to do so; I believe it to be a fact. 

4. Who, then, is Aaron Burr, and what the part which he 
has borne in this transaction? He is its author; its projector ; 
its active executor. Bold, ardent, restless, and aspiring, his 
brain conceived it; his hand brought it into action. Begin- 
ning his operation in New York, he associates with him men 
whose wealth is to supply the necessary funds. Possessed 
of the main spring, his personal labour contrives all the ma- 
chinery. Pervading the continent from New York to New 
Orleans, he draws into his plan by every allurement which he 
can contrive, men of all ranks, and all descriptions. To 
youthful ardour he presents danger and glory; to ambition, 
rank, and titles, and honours ;_ to avarice, the mines of Mexico. 

5. To each person whom he addresses, he presents the ob- 
ject adapted to his taste: his recruiting officers are appointed ; 
men are engaged throughout the continent; civil life is indeed 
quiet upon its surface; but in its bosom this man has con- 
trived to deposite the materials, which, with the slightest touch 
of his. match, would produce an explosion to shake the conti- 
nent. All this his restless ambition has contrived ; and in the 
autumn of 1806, he goes forth for the last time, to apply this 
match. On this excursion he meets with Blannerhassett. 

6. Who is Blannerhassett? a native of Ireland, a man of 
letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find 
quiet in ours. His history shows that war is not the natural 
element of his mind; if it had been, he would never have 
exchanged Ireland for America. So far isan army from fur- 


116 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


nishing the society natural and proper to Mr. Blannerhassett’s 
character, that, on his arrival in America, he retired even from 
the population of the Atlantick states, and sought quiet and 
solitude in the bosom of our western forests. But he carried 
with him taste, and science, and wealth; and, ‘lo, the desert 
smiled.” 

7. Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he 
rears upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantick 
embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery, that Shenstone might 
have envied, blooms around him; musick that might have 
charmed Calypso and her nymphs, is his ; an extensive Jibrary 
spreads its treasures before him; a philosophical apparatus 
offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature ; peace, 
tranquillity, and innocence, shed their mingled delights around 
him ; and, to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who 
is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every 
accomplishment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him 
with her love, and made him the father of her children. The 
evidence would convince you, sir, that this is but a faint pic- 
ture of the real life. 

8. In the midst of all this peace, this innocence, and this 
tranquillity ; this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the 
heart, the destroyer comes; he comes to turn this paradise 
into a hell; yet the flowers do not wither at his approach, and 
no monitory shuddering through the bosom of their unfortu- 
nate possessor, warns him of the ruin that is coming upon him. 

9. A stranger presents himself. Introduced to their civili- 
ties by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, 
he soon finds his way to their hearts by the dignity and ele- 
gance of his demeanour, the light and beauty of his conver- 
sation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address. 
The conquest was nota difficult one. Innocence is ever sim- 
ple and credulous ; conscious of no designs itself, it suspects 
none in others; it wears no guards before its breast; every 
door, and portal, and avenue of the heart, is thrown open, and 
all who choose it ehter. 

10. Such was the state of Eden, when the serpent entered 
its bowers. The prisoner, in a more engaging form, winding 
himself into the open and unpractised heart of the unfortunate 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. | 117 


Blannerhassett, found but little difficulty in changing the native 
character of that heart, and the objects of its affection. 

11. By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his own 
ambition ; he breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a 
daring and a desperate thirst for glory ; an ardour panting for 
all the storm, and bustle, and hurricane of life. In a short 
time the whole man is changed, and every object of his former 
delight relinquished. 

12. No more he enjoys the tranquil scene: it has become 
flat and insipid to his taste ; his books are abandoned ; his re- 
tort and crucible are thrown aside ; his shrubbery blooms and 
breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain; he likes it not; 
his ear no longer drinks the rich melody of musick ; it longs 
for the trumpet’s clangour and the cannon’s roar; even the 
prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and 
the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom 
with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unfelt and unseen. 

13. Greater objects have taken possession of his soul; his 
imagination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, and stars, 
and garters, and titles of nobility: he has been taught to burn 
with restless emulation at the names of Cromwell, Cesar, and 
Bonaparte. 

14. His enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a 
desert ; and in a few months we find the tender and beautiful 
partner of his bosom, whom he lately “permitted not the 
winds of” summer ‘to visit too roughly,” we find her shiver- 
ing, at midnight, on the winter banks of the Ohio, and min- 
gling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell. 

15. Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest 
and his happiness ; thus seduced from the paths of innocence 
and peace; thus confounded in the toils which were deliber- 
ately spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit 
and genius of another; this man, thus ruined and undone, and 
made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt 
and treason; this man is to be called the principal offender ; 
while he by whom he was plunged and steeped in misery, is 
comparatively innocent; a mere accessary. 

16. Sir, neither the human heart nor the human under- 
standing will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd; so 


118 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


shocking to the soul; so revolting to reason. O! no, sir. 
There is no man who knows any thing of this affair, who does 
not know that to everybody concerned in it, Aaron Burr was 
as the sun to the planets which surround him; he bound them 
in their respective orbits, and gave them their light, their heat, 
and their motion. 

17. Let im not then shrink from the high destination which 
he has courted; and, having already ruined Blannerhassett in 
fortune, character, and happiness for ever, attempt to finish the 
tragedy by thrusting that ill-fated man between himself and 
punishment. 


LESSON XLVII. 
Education in Prussia.—RocuestTerR Gem. 


1. ALt parents, in Prussia, are bound by law to send their 
children to the publick elementary schools, or to satisfy the au- 
thorities that their education is sufficiently provided for at home. 
This regulation is of considerable antiquity ; it was confirmed 
by Frederick the Great in 1769, and was introduced into the 
Prussian Landrecht, or code, in 1794, and finally it was 
adopted in the law of 1819, which forms the basis of the 
actual system of Prussia. 

2. The obligation in question extends not only to parents 
and guardians, but to all persons who have power over children, 
such as manufacturers and masters of apprentices, and ap- 
plies to children of both sexes, from their seventh to their 
fourteenth year complete. ‘I'wice a year, the school com- 
mittee and the municipal authorities make a list of the chil- 
dren in their district whose parents do not provide for their 
education, and require the attendance of all who are within 
the prescribed age. 

3. This attendance is dispensed with if satisfaction is given 
that the children will be properly instructed elsewhere ; but 
the parents are nevertheless bound to contribute to the school 
to which their children would naturally belong. Lists of 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 119 


attendance, kept by the schoolmaster, are delivered every fort- 
night to the school committee. 

4. In order to facilitate the regular attendance of the 
children, and yet not altogethe: deprive the parents of their 
assistance, the hours of lessons in the elementary schools are 
arranged in such a manner as to leave the children, every day, 
some hours for domestick labours. The schoolmasters are 
prohibited by severe penalties from employing their scholars 
in household work. ‘The schools are closed on Sundays ; 
but the evenings, after divine service and the catechism, may 
be devoted to gymnastick exercises. 

5. Care is taken to enable poor parents to obey the law, 
by providing their children with books and clothes. “It is to 
be hoped (says the law) that facilities and assistance of this 
kind, the moral and religious influence of clergymen, and the 
good advice of members of the school committees and the 
municipal authorities, will cause the people gradually to appre- 
ciate the advantages of a good elementary education ;_ and will 
infuse among young persons the desire of obtaining knowl- 
edge, which will lead them to seek it of their own accord.” 

6. If, however, the parents omit to send their children to 
school, the clergyman is first to acquaint them with the im- 
portance of the duty which they neglect ; and if his exhortation 
is not sufficient, the school committee may summon them, 
and remonstrate with them severely. The only excuses ad- 
mitted are, a certificate of illness by a medical man, the ab- 
sence of the children with their parents, or the want of clothes. 

7. If all remonstrances fail, the children may be taken to 
school by a police man, or the parents, guardians, or masters, 
brought before the committee and fined, or imprisoned in de- 
fault of payment, or condemned to hard labour for the benefit 
of thecommune. ‘These punishments may be increased up to 
a certain limit for successive infractions of the law. 

8. Whenever the parents are condemned to imprisonment 
or hard labour, care is to be taken that their children are not 
abandoned during the time of their punishment. Parents who 
neglect this duty to their children, are to lose all claim to 
pecuniary relief from the publick, except the allowance for in- 
struction, which, however, is not to pass through their hands, 


120 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


They are likewise declared incapable of filling any municipal 
office in their commune. 

9. If all punishments fail, a guardian is to be allotted to 
the children, and a co-guardian towards, in order specially to 
watch over their education. Both Protestant and Roman 
Catholick ministers are enjoined to exhort parents to send 
their children regularly to school; and they are prohibited 
from admitting any children to their examinations for confirma- 
tion and communion, who do not produce certificates showing 
that they have finished their attendance at school, or that they 
still regularly attend it, or that they receive or have received 
a separate education. 


LESSON XLVIII. 


To the Susquehannah, on its Junction with the Lackawanna.— 
Mrs. SicouRNEY. 


1. Rush on, glad stream, in thy power and pride, 
To claim the hand of thy promised bride ; 
For she hastes from the realm of the darkened mine 
To mingle her murmured vows with thine ; 
Ye have met, ye have met, and your shores prolong 
The liquid tone of your nuptial song. 
2. Methinks ye wed, as the white man’s son 
And the child of the Indian king have done. 
I saw thy bride, as she strove in vain 
To cleanse her brow from the carbon stain ; 
But she brings thee a dowry so rich and true, 
That thy love must not shrink from the tawny hue. 
3. Her birth was rude in a mountain-cell, 
And her infant freaks there are none to tell ; 
_ Yet the path of her beauty was wild and free, 
And in dell and forest she hid from thee ; 
But the day of her fond caprice is o’er, 
And she seeks to part from thy breast no more. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, Be a | 


4. Pass on, in the joy of thy blended tide, 
Through the land where the blessed Miquon* died. 
No red man’s blood, with its guilty stain, 
Hath cried unto God from that broad domain. 
With the seeds of peace they have sown the soil ; 
Bring a harvest of wealth for their hour of toil. 

5. On, on, through the vale where the brave ones sleep, 
Where the waving foliage is rich and deep ; 
I have stood on the mountain and roamed through the glen 
To the beautiful homes of the western men; 
Yet naught in that reign of glory could see 
So fair as the vale of Wyoming to me. 


LESSON XLIX. 
Examples of Decision of Character.—Joun Foster. 


1. I have repeatedly remarked to you, in conversation, the 
effect of what has been called a ruling passion. When its 
object is noble, and an enlightened understanding directs its 
movements, it appears to me a great felicity ; but, whether its 
object be noble or not, it infallibly creates, where it exists in 
great force, that active, ardent constancy, which I describe as 
a capital feature of the decisive character. 

2. The subject of such a commanding passion wonders, if 
indeed he were-at leisure to wonder, at the persons who pre- 
tend to attach importance to an object which they make none 
but the most languid efforts to secure. The utmost powers 
of the man are constrained into the service of the favourite 


* A name given by the native Indians of Pennsylvania to 
William Penn. His kind and pacifick treatment of them won 
their affections, and the Delawares were accustomed to call 
him their “‘ beloved elder brother.”—* The great and good Mi- 
quon came to us,” said they, ‘‘ bringing peace and good-will.” 
His treaty made with them, under the great elm-tree at 
Shackamaxon, where Kensington now stands, has been elo- 
quently styled, “the only treaty ratified without an oath, and 
the only one that was never broken.” 


122 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


w 
cause by this passion, which sweeps away, as it advances, all 
the trivial objections and little opposing motives, and seems 
almost to open a way through impossibilities. 

3. This spirit comes on him in the morning as soon as he 
recovers his consciousness, and commands and impels him 
through the day with a power from which he could not eman- 
cipate himself if he would. When the force of habit is added, 
the determination becomes invincible, and seems to assume 
rank with the great laws of nature, making it nearly as certain 
that such a man will persist in his course, as that, in the morn- 
ing, the sun will rise. 

4. A persisting, untameable efficacy of soul, gives a seduc- 
tive and pernicious dignity even to a character and a course, 
which every moral principle forbids us to approve. Often, in 
the narrations of history and fiction, an agent of the most 
dreadful designs compels a sentiment of deep respect for the 
unconquerable mind displayed in their execution. 

5. While we shudder at his activity, we say with regret, 
mingled with an admiration which borders on partiality, What 
a noble being this would have been, if goodness had been his 
destiny! The partiality is evinced in the very selection of 
terms, by which we show that we are tempted to refer his atro- 
city rather to his destiny than to his choice. 

6. In some of the high examples of ambition, we almost 
revere the force of mind which impelled them forward through 
the longest series of action, superiour to doubt and fluctuation, 
and disdainful of ease, of pleasures, of opposition, and of 
hazard. We bow to the ambitious spirit, which reached the 
true sublime in the reply of Pompey to his friends, who dis- 
suaded him from venturing on a tempestuous sea, in order to 
be at Rome on an important occasion: “It is necessary for 
me to go; it is not necessary for me to live.” 

7. You may recollect the mention, in one of our conversa- 
tions, of a young man who wasted, in two or three years, a 
large patrimony, in profligate revels with a number of worth- 
less associates, who called themselves his friends, and who, 
when his last means were exhausted, treated him, of course. 
with neglect or contempt. 

8. Reduced to absolute want, he one day went out of the 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 123 


house in a melancholy state of mind; and, wandering a 
while almost unconsciously, he came to the brow of an 
eminence which overlooked what were very lately his estates. 
Here he sat down, and remained fixed in thought a number of 
hours, at the end of which he sprang from the ground with a 
vehement, exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution, 
which was, that all these estates should be his again: he had 
formed his plan, too, which he instantly began to execute. 

9. He walked hastily forward, determined to seize the very 
first opportunity, of however humble a kind, to gain any money, 
though it were ever so despicable a trifle, and resolved abso- 
lutely not to spend, if- he could help it, a farthing of whatsoever 
he might obtain. The first thing that drew his attention was 
a heap of coals shot out of carts on the pavement before a 
house. 

10. He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the 
place where they were to be laid, and was employed. He re- 
ceived a few pence for the labour, and then, in pursuance of 
the saving part of his plan, requested some small gratuity of 
meat and drink, which was given him. He then looked out 
for the next thing that might chance to offer, and went, with 
indefatigable industry, through a succession of servile employ- 
ments in different places, of longer and shorter duration, still 
scrupulously avoiding, as far as possible, the expense of a 
penny. He promptly seized every opportunity which could 
advance his design, without regarding the meanness of occu- 
pation or appearance. 

11. By this method he had gained, after a considerable 
time, money enough to purchase, in order to sell again, a few 
cattle, of which he had taken pains to understand the value. 
He speedily, but cautiously, turned his first gains into second | 
advantages ; retained, without a single deviation, his extreme 
parsimony ; and thus advanced by degrees into larger transac- 
tions and incipient wealth. 

12. I did not hear, or have forgotten, the continued course 
of his life; but the final result was, that he more than recov- 
ered his lost possessions, and died an inveterate miser, worth 
$60,000. I have always remembered this as a signal in- 
stance, though in an unfortunate and ignoble direction, of de- 


F 2 


124 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


cisive character, und of the extracrdinary effect which, ac- 
cording to general laws, belongs to the strongest form of such 
a character. 

13. But not less decision has been displayed by men of 
virtue. . In this distinction no man ever exceeded, for instance, 
or ever will exceed, the late illustrious Howard. The energy 
of his determination was so great, that if, instead of being 
habitual, it had been shown only for a short time, on particular 
occasions, it would have appeared a vehement impetuosity ; 
but, by being unintermitted, it had an equability of manner, 
which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm con- 
stancy, it was so totally the reverse of any thing like turbu- 
lence or agitation. 

14. It was the calmness of an intensity kept uniform by 
the nature of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by 
the character of the individual forbidding it to be less. The 
habitual passion of his mind was a measure of feeling almost 
equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of common 
minds: as a great river in its customary state is equal to a 
small or moderate one when swollen to a torrent. 

15. The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and 
commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what 
must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument or 
pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive after 
their final adjustment. - The law which carries water down a 
declivity was not more unconquerable and invariable than the 
determination of his feelings towards the main object. 

16. The importance of this object held his faculties in a 
state of excitement, which was too rigid to be affected by 
lighter interests, and on which, therefore, the beauties of na- 
ture and of art had no power. He had no leisure feeling, which 
he could spare to be diverted among the innumerable varieties 
of the extensive scene which he traversed ; all his subordinate 
feelings lost their separate existence and operation, by falling 
into the grand one. 

17. There have not been wanting trivial minds, to mark 
this as a fault in his character. But the mere men of taste 
eught to be silent respecting such a man as Howard ; he is 
above their sphere of judgement. The invisible spirits, who 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 125 - 


fulfil their commission of philanthropy among mortals, do not 
care about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings ; and no 
more did he, when the time, in which he must have inspected 
and admired them, would have been taken from the work to 
which he had consecrated his life. 

18. The curiosity which he might feel was reduced to wait 
till the hour should arrive, when its gratification should be pre- 
sented by conscience, which kept a scrupulous charge of all 
his time, as the most sacred duty of that hour. If he was 
still at every hour, when it came, fated to feel the attractions 
of the fine arts but the second claim, they might be sure of 
their revenge; for no other man will ever visit Rome under such 
a despotick consciousness of duty, as to refuse himself time for 
surveying the magnificence of its ruins. » 

19. Such a sin against taste is very far beyond the reach 
of common saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable 
severity of conviction, that he had one thing to do, and that 
he who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply 
himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces, 
as, to idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, ap- 
pears like insanity. 

20. His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on 
his object, that, even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian 
pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him with a luminous 
distinctness, as if it had been nigh, and beguiled the toilsome 
length of labour and enterprise by which he was to reach it, 
It was so conspicuous before him, that not a step deviated 
from the direction, and every movement, and every day, was 
an approximation. 

21. As his method referred every thing he did and thought 
to the end, and as his exertion did not relax for a moment, he 
made the trial, so seldom made, what is the utmost effect 
which may be granted to the last possible efforts of a human 
agent ; and, therefore, what he did not accomplish, he might 
conclude to be placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, 
and calmly leave to the immediate disposal of Omnipotence. 


126 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON L. 


Extract from the Oration of Thomas Dawes, Esq., delivered 
at Boston, July 4, 1787. 


1. Tart education is one of the decpest principles of in- 
dependence, need not be laboured in this assembly. In 
arbitrary governments, where the people neither make the law, 
nor choose those who legislate, the more ignorance the more 
peace. 

2. But, in a government where the people fill all the 
branches of the sovereignty, intelligence is the life of liberty. 
An American would resent his being denied the use of his 
musket ; but he would deprive himself of a stronger safe- 
guard, if he should want that learning which is necessary toa 
knowledge of his constitution. 

3. It is easy to see that our agrarian Jaw, and the law of 
education, were calculated to make republicans; to make 
men. Servitude could never long consist with the habits of 
such citizens. Enlightened minds and virtuous manners 
lead to the gates of glory. The sentiment of independence 
must have been connatural in the bosoms of Americans, and, 
sooner or later, must have blazed out into publick action. 

4. Independence fits the soul of her residence for every 
noble enterprise of humanity and greatness. Her radiant 
smile lights up celestial ardour in poets and orators, who 
sound her praises through all ages: in legislators and philos- 
ophers, who fabricate wise and happy governments as dedica- 
tions to her fame ; in patriots and heroes who shed their lives 
in sacrifice to her divinity. 

5. At this idea, do not our minds swell with the memory 
of those whose godlike virtues have founded her most mag- 
nificent temple in America? It is easy for us to maintain her 
doctrine, at this late day, when there is but one party on the 
subject; an immense people. But what tribute shall we 
bestow, what sacred pean shall we raise over the tombs of 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 127 


those who dared, in the face of unrivalled power, and within 
the reach of majesty, to blow the blast of freedom throughout 
a subject continent ? 

6. Nor did those brave countrymen of ours only express 
the emotions of glory ; the nature of their principles inspired | 
them with the power of practice ; and they offered their bosoms 
to the shafts of battle. Bunker's awful mound is the capacious 
urn of their ashes ; but the flaming bounds of the universe 
could not limit the flight of their minds. 

7. They fled to the union of kindred souls; and those who 
fell at the straits of Thermopylz, and those who bled on the 
heights of Charlestown, now reap congenial joys in the fields 
of the blessed. 


LESSON LI. 
The Slanderer.—Po.wox. 


1. ’T was Slander filled her mouth with lying words, 
Slander, the foulest whelp cf Sin. The man 
In whom this spirit entered was undone. 
His tongue was set on fire of hell, his heart 
Was black as death, his legs were faint with haste 
To propagate the lie his soul had framed, 
His pillow was the peace of families 
Destroyed, the sigh of innocence reproached, 
Broken friendships, and the strife of brotherhoods ; 
Yet did he spare his sleep, and hear the clock 
Number the midnight watches, on his bed, 
Devising mischief more ; and early rose, 
And made most hellish meals of good men’s names. 
2. From door to door you might have seen him speed, 
Or placed amidst a group of gaping fools, 
And whispering in their ears, with his foul lips 
Peace fled the neighbourhood in which he made 
His haunts ; and, like a moral pestilence, 
Before his breath the healthy shoots and blooms 


128 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Of social joy and happiness, decayed. 

Fools only in his company were seen, 

And those forsaken of God, and to themselves given up. 
3. The prudent shunned him and his house 

As one who had a deadly moral plague ; 

And fain all would have shunned him at the day 

Of judgement; but in vain. All who gave ear 

With greediness, or wittingly their tongues 

Made herald to his lies, around him wailed ; 

While on his face, thrown back by injured men, 

In characters of ever-blushing shame, 

Appeared ten thousand slanders, all his own. 


LESSON LILI. 
Moral Effects of Intemperance.—WayLAND. 


1. In adjusting the nicely arranged system of man’s imma- 
terial nature, it is abundantly evident, that his passions and 
appetites were designed to be subjected implicitly to reason 
and to conscience. From the want of this subjection, all his 
misery arises ; and just in proportion to the perfection in 
which it is established, does he advance in happiness and 
virtue. - 

2. But it unfortunately is found that in all men, in their 
present state, the power of the passions is by far too great, for 
the controlling influence of that guardianship to which they 
should be subjected. Hence it is found necessary to 
strengthen the influence of reason and conscience, by all the 
concurring aids of law, of interest, of publick opinion, and, | 
also, by all the tremendous sanctions of religion. And even 
all these are frequently found insufficient to overcome the 
power of vindictive, turbulent, and malicious passions, and 
of earthly, brutal, and sensual lust. 

3. Now it is found, that nothing has the power of inflaming 
these passions, already too strong for the control of the pos- 
sessor, like the use of ardent spirits. Nothing also has the 
power, in an equa! degree, to silence the monitions of reason, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 129 


and drown the voice of conscience, and thus surrender the man 
up, the headlong victim of fierce and remorseless sensuality. 

4, Let a bear bereaved of her whelps meet a man, said 
Solomon, rather than a fool in his folly. An intemperate man 
is phrensied at the suspicion of an insult, he is outrageous at 
the appearance of opposition, he construes every thing into 
an offence, and at offence he is implacable. He is revenge- 
ful unto death, at the least indignity ; while his appetites are 
roused to ungovernable strength by the remotest prospect of 
gratification. 

5. He is dangerous as a ferocious beast, and our only secu- 
rity is to flee from him, or chain him. I ask, What is there 
to prevent any man thus bereft of reason and conscience, and 
surrendered for the time to the dominion of passion and appe- 
tite, from committing any crime, which the circumstances - 
around him may suggest ? 

6. Such is the moral effect of the excitement of mtemper- 
ance. But when this first stage has passed away, the second 
is scarcely more enviable. He is now as likely to commit 
crime from utter hopelessness, as he was before from phren- 
sied impetuosity. The horrour of his situation now bursts 
upon him in all its reality. 

7. Poverty, want, disgrace, the misery which he has brought 
upon himself, his family, his friends, all stand before him in 
the most aggravated forms; rendered yet more appalling by 
the consciousness that he has lost all power of resistance, and 
that all the energies of self-government are prostrated within 
him. He has not moral power to resist the temptation that is 
destroying him; and he has sufficient intellect left to compre- 
hend the full nature of that destruction. He has no physical 
vigour left, to resume his former course of healthy and active 
employment. 

8. The contest within him becomes at last a scene of un- 
mitigated anguish. He will do any thing rather than bear it. 
He will fly to any thing rather than suffer it. Hence you 
find such men the constant attendants upon gambling houses, 
the associates, partakers, and instruments of thieves; and, 
not unfrequently, do you find them ending their days by self- 
_ inflicted murder. 


F3 


130 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LIII. 
Death of King Philip.—Irvine. 


1. Ir is said that when the Indian chieftain, King Philip, 
had long borne up against a series of miseries and misfor- 
tunes, the treachery of his followers reduced him to utter de- 
spondency. ‘The spring of hope was broken; the ardour of 
enterprise was extinguished: he looked around, and all was 
danger and darkness; there was no eye to pity, or any arm 
that could bring deliverance. 

2. With a scanty band of followers, who still remained true 
to his desperate fortunes, the unhappy Philip wandered back 
to the vicinity of Mount Hope, the ancient dwelling of his 
fathers. He wandered, like a spectre, among the scenes of 
former power and prosperity, bereft of home, of family, and 
friend. 

3. Even at his last refuge of desperation and despair, a 
sullen grandeur gathers round his memory. We picture him 
to ourselves seated among his care-worn followers, brooding 
in silence over his blasted fortunes, and acquiring a savage 
sublimity from the wildness and dreariness of his lurking-place. 
Defeated, but not dismayed; crushed to the earth, but not 
humiliated ; he seemed to grow more haughty beneath disas- 
ter, and to experience a fierce satisfaction in draining the last 
dregs of bitterness. 

4. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes ; 
but great minds rise above them. ‘The idea of submission 
awakened the fury of Philip, and he smote to death a follower 
who proposed an expedient of peace. The brother of the 
victim escaped, and in revenge betrayed the retreat of his 
chieftain. 

5. A body of white men and Indians were immediately de- 
spatched to the swamp where Philip lay crouched, glaring with 
fury and despair. Before he was aware of their approach, they 
had begun to surround him. In a little while he saw five of 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 131 


his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet; all resistance was 
vain; he rushed forth from his covert, and made a headlong 
attempt to escape, but was shot through the heart by a rene- 
gado Indian of his own nation. 

6. Such was the fate of the brave, but unfortunate King 
Philip ; persecuted while living, slandered and dishonoured 
when dead. If, however, we consider even the prejudiced an- 
ecdotes furnished us by his enemies, we may perceive in them 
traces of amiable and lofiy character, sufficient to awaken sym- 
pathy for his fate, and respect for his memory. We find, that 
amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions of con- 
stant warfare, he was alive to the softer feelings of connubial 
love and paternal tenderness, and to the generous sentiment of 
friendship. 

7. The captivity of his beloved wife and only son is men- 
tioned with exultation, as causing him poignant misery: the 
death of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new 
blow on his sensibilities; but the treachery and desertion of 
many of his followers, in whose affections he had confided, are 
said to have desolated his héart, and to have bereaved him of 
all farther comfort. 

8. He was a patriot, attached to his native soil; a prince, 
true to his subjects, and indignant of their wrongs ; a soldier, 
daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of fatigue, of hun- 
ger, of every variety of bodily suffering, and ready to perish 
in the cause he had espoused. Proud of heart, and with an 
untameable love of natural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it 
among the beasts of the forests, or in the dismal and famished 
recesses of swamps and morasses, rather than bow his haughty 
spirit to submission, and live dependant and despised in the 
ease and luxury of the settlements. 

9. With heroick qualities and bold achievements that would 
have graced a civilized warriour, and have rendered him the 
theme of the poet and the historian, he lived a wanderer and a 
fugitive in his native land, and went down, like a lonely bark, 
foundering amidst darkness and tempest ; without a pitying eye 
to weep his fall, or a friendly hand to record his struggle. 


132 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


LESSON LIV. 


Speech of the Scythian Ambassador to Alexander.— 
Q. Currivs. 


l. Ir your person were as gigantick as your desires, the 
world would not contain you. Your right hand would touch 
the east, and your left the west, at the same time. You grasp 
at more than you are equal to. From Eurepe you reach 
Asia: from Asia you lay hold on Europe. And if you should 
conquer all mankind, you seem disposed to wage war with 
woods and snows, with rivers and wild beasts, and to attempt 
to subdue nature. 

2. But have you considered the usual course of things? 
Have you reflected, that great trees are many years in grow- 
ing to their height, and are cut down in an hour? It is fool- 
ish to think of the fruit only, without considering the height 
you have to climb, to come at it. Take care lest, while you 
strive to reach the top, you fall to the ground, with the branches 
you have laid hold on. The lion, when dead, is devoured by 
ravens: and rust consumes the hardness of iron. 

3. There is nothing so strong, but it is in danger from what 
is weak. It will, therefore, be your wisdom to take care how 
you venture beyond your reach. Besides, what have you to 
do with the Scythians, or the Scythians with you? We have 
never invaded Macedon: why should you attack Scythia? 
We inhabit vast deserts, and pathless woods, where we do not 
want to hear the name of Alexander. 

4. We are not disposed to submit to slavery ; and we have 
no ambition to tyrannise over any nation. That you may un- 
derstand the genius of the Scythians, we present you with a 
yoke of oxen, an arrow, and a goblet. We use these respect- 
ively, in our commerce with friends and with foes. We give 
to our friends the corn, which we raise by the labour of our 
oxen. With the goblet we join with them in pouring drink- 
‘offerings to the gods; and with arrows we attack our enemies. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 133 


5. We have conquered those who have attempted to tyran- 
nise over us in our own country, and likewise the kings of the: 
Medes and Persians, when they made unjust war upon us ; 
and we have opened to ourselves a way into Egypt. You 
pretend to be the punisher of robbers; and are yourself the 
general robber of mankind. You have taken Lydia: you 
have seized Syria: you are master of Persia: you have sub- 
dued the Bactrians ; and attacked India. 

6. All this will not satisfy you, unless you lay your greedy 
and insatiable hands upon our flocks and our herds. How 
imprudent is your conduct! You grasp at riches, the posses- 
sion of which only increases your avarice. You increase your 
hunger by what should produce satiety ; so that the more you 
have, the more you desire. 

7. But have you forgot how long the conquest of the Bac- 
trians detained you? While you were subduing them, the 
Sogdians revolted. Your victories serve no other purpose 
than to find you employment by producing new wars. For 
the business of every conquest is cwofold; to win, and to 
preserve. And though you may be the greatest of warriours, 
you must expect, that the nations you conquer wil] endeavour 
to shake off the yoke as fast as possible. 

8. For what people chooses to be under foreign dominion 2 
If you will cross the Tanais, you may travel over Scythia, and 
observe how extensive a territory we inhabit. But to conquer 
us is quite another business. Your army is loaded with the 
cumbrous spoils of many nations. You will find the poverty 
of the Scythians, at one time, too nimble for your pursuit ; 
and at another time, when you think we are fled far enough 
from you, you will have us surprise you in'your camp. For 
the Scythians attack with no less vigour than they flee. 

9, Why should we put you in mind of the vastness of the 
country you will have to conquer! ‘The deserts of Scythia 
are commonly talked of in Greece ; and all the world knows, 
that our delight is to dwell at large, and not in towns or plant- 
ations. It will therefore be your wisdom to keep with strict 
attention what you have gained. Catching at more, you may 
lose what you have. 

10.. We have a proverbial saying in Scythia, That Fortune 


134 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


has no feet, and is furnished only with hands, to distribute her 
capricious favours; and with fins, to elude the grasp of those 
to whom she has been bountiful. You give yourself out to be 
a god, the son of Jupiter Ammon. It suits the character of a 
god to bestow favours on mortals; not to deprive them of 
what good they have. But if you are no god, reflect on the 
precarious condition of humanity. 

11. You will thus show more wisdom than by dwelling on 
those subjects which have puffed up your pride, and made you 
forget yourself. You see how little you are likely to gain by 
attempting the conquest of Scythia. On the other hand, you 
may, if you please, have in us a valuable ally. We command 
the borders of both Europe-and Asia. 

12. There is nothing between us and Bactria but the river 
Tanais: and our territory extends to Thrace, which, as we 
have heard, borders on Macedon. If you decline attacking 
us in a hostile manner, you may have our friendship. Nations 
which have never been at war are on an equal footing. But 
it is in vain, that confidence is reposed in a conquered people. 
There can be no sincere friendship between the oppressor and 
the oppressed, 

13. Even in peace, the latter think themselves entitled to 
the rights of war against the former. We will, if you think 
good, enter into a treaty with you, according to our manner ; 
which is, not by signing, sealing, or taking the gods to witness, 
as is the Grecian custom ; but by doing actual services. 

14. The Scythians are not used to promise ; but to perform 
without promising. And they think an appeal to the gods su- 
perfluous: for that those who have no regard for the esteem 
of men, will not hesitate to offend the gods by perjury. You 
may therefore consider with yourself, whether you had better 
have a people of sucha character, and so situated as to have 
it in their power either to serve you or to annoy you, according 
as you treat them, as allies or as enemies. 


w 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LY. 
The Genius of Death.—Cro ty. 


. Wuart is death? ’Tis to be free! 


No more to love, or hope, or fear ; 
To join the great equality : 
All alike are humble there ! 
The mighty grave 
Wraps lord and slave ; 
Nor pride, nor poverty, dares come 
Within that refuge-house, the tomb! 
Spirit with the drooping wing, 
And the ever-weeping eye, 
Thou of all earth’s kings art king! 
Empires at thy footstool lie ! 
Beneath thee strewed, 
Their multitude 
Sink, like waves upon the shore ; 
Storms shall never rouse them more! 


What’s the grandeur of the earth, 
To the grandeur round thy throne! 
Riches, glory, beauty, birth, 
To thy kingdom all have gone, 
Before thee stand 
The wondrous band ; 
Bards, heroes, sages, side by side, 
Who darkened nations when they died ! 


. Earth has hosts ; but thou canst show 


Many a million for her one ; 
Through thy gates the mortal flow 
Has for countless years rolled on. 
Back from the tomb 
No step has come ; 
There fixed, till the last thunder’s sound 
Shall bid thy prisoners be unbound. 


135 


126 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LVI. 
Account of the Plague in London.—Gatt. 


1. In its malignancy it engrossed the ill of all other mala- 
dies, and made doctors despicable. Of a potency equal to 
death, it possessed itself of all his armories, and was itself 
the death of every mortal distemper. The touch, yea, the 
very sight of the infected, was deadly; and its signs were so 
sudden, that families seated in happiness at their meals have 
seen the plague-spot begin to redden, and have widely scat- 
tered themselves for ever. 

2. The cement of society was dissolved by it. Mothers, 
when they saw the sign of the infection on the babes at their 
breast, cast them from them with abhorrence. Wild places 
were sought for shelter; some went into ships, and anchored 
themselves afar off on the waters. But the angel that was 
pouring the vial had a foot on the sea as well as on the dry 
land. No place was so wild that the plague did not visit ; 
none so secret that the quicksighted pestilence did not dis- 
cover ; none could fly that it did not overtake. 

3. It was as if Heaven had repented the making of man- 
kind, and was shovelling them all into the sepulchre. Justice 
was forgotten, and her courts deserted ; the terrified jailers 
fled from the felons that were in fetters; the innocent and the 
guilty leagued themselves together, and kept within their 
prisons for safety; the grass grew in the market-places ; the 
cattle went moaning up and down the fields, wondering what 
had become of their keepers ; the rooks and the ravens came 
into the towns, and built their nests in the mute belfries ; 
silence was universal, save when some infected wretch was 
seen clamouring at a window. 

4, For atime all commerce was in coffins and shrouds ; 
but even that ended. Shrift there was none; churches and 
chapels were open, but neither priest nor penitent entered ; all 
went to the charnel-house. The sexton and the physician 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. - 137 


were cast into the same deep and wide grave; the testator 
and his heirs and executors, were hurled from the same cart 
into the same hole together. Fire became extinguished, as 
if its element too had expired; the seams of the sailorless 
ships yawned to the sun. 

5. Though doors were open and coffers unwatched, there 
was no theit ; all offences ceased, and no crime but the uni- 
versal wo of the pestilence was heard of among men. The 
wells overflowed, and the conduits ran to waste; the dogs 
banded themselves together, having lost their masters, and ran 
howling over all the land ; horses perished of famine in their 
stalls ; old friends but looked at one another when they met, 
keeping themselves far aloof; creditors claimed no debts, 
and courtiers performed their promises ; little children went 
wandering up and down, and numbers were seen dead in all 
corners. Nor was it only in England that the plague so 
raged ; it travelled over a third part of the whole earth, like 
the shadow of an eclipse, as if some dreadful thing had been 
interposed between the world and the sun-source of life. 


LESSON LVII. 


We ashington’s Headquarters. aah ew York Mirror.— 
GuLian C. VERPLANCK. 


1. Tue old Hasbrook-house, as it is called, situated on 
the west bank of the Hudson, a little south of the village of 
Newburgh, is one of the most interesting relicks of the first 
and heroick age of our republick ; for at several periods of 
the war of the revolution, and especially from the autumn of 
1782 until the troops were finally disbanded, it was occupied 
by General Washington, as the headquarters of the American 
army. 

2. The views from the house and grounds, as well as the 
whole neighbourhood around it, are rich alike in natural beauty 
and historical remembrances. You look from the old house 
upon the broad bay into which the Hudson expands itself, 


) Ss}. NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


just before entering the deep, rocky bed, through which it flows 
towards the ocean between the lofty mountain-banks of the 
Highlands. 

3. On the opposite shore, is seen the ridge of mountains, 
upon the bald, rocky summits of which, during the war 
of 1776, the beacon-fires so often blazed to alarm the country 
at the incursions of the enemy from the south, or else to com- 
municate signals between the frontier posts in Westchester, 
along the line of the American position at Verplanck’s Point, 
West Point, and the barracks and encampments on the plains 
of Fishkill. 

4. As these mountains recede eastward from the river, you 
see the romantick stream of Mattavoan winding wildly along 
their base, through glens and over falls, until, at last, as if fatigued 
with its wanton rambles, it mingles quietly and placidly with 
the Hudson. On this side of it are stretched the rich plains 
of Dutchess county, with their woody and picturesque shores. — 
All along these plains and shores are to be found other me- 
morials of the revolution; for there were the storehouses, 
barracks, and hospitals of our army, and there, for many 
months, were the headquarters of the father of American 
tacticks, the disciplinarian Steuben. 

5. To the south, you look down upon the opening of the 
Highlands and the rock of Pollopell’s Island, once a military 
prison, and thence follow, with your eye, the Great River of the 
Mountains* till it turns suddenly and disappears around the 
rocky promontory of West Point; a spot consecrated by 
the most exciting recollections of our history, by the story of 
Arold’s guilt and André’s hapless fate, and the incorruptible 
virtue of our yeomanry ; by the memory of the virtues of 
Kosciusko and Lafayette ; of the wisdom and valour of our 
own chiefs and sages. 

6. ‘The Hasbrook-house itself, is a solid, irregular building 
of rough stone, erected about a century ago. ‘The excellent 
landscape, painted by Weir, and engraved with equal spirit and 
fidelity by Smillie, will give the reader a better idea of its 
appearance and character than words can convey. The 

¢ 
* The Indian name of the Hudson. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 139 


interiour remains very nearly as Washington left it. The 
largest room is in the centre of the house, about twenty-four 
feet square, but so disproportionately low, as to appear very 
much larger. fs 

7. It served the general during his residence there, in the 
daytime, for his hall of reception and his dining-room, where he 
regularly kept up a liberal, though plain hospitality. At night 
it was used as a bedroom for his aiddecamps and occa- 
sional military visiters and guests. It was long memorable 
among the veterans who had seen the chief there, for its huge 
wood fire, built against the wall, in, or rather under, a wide 
chimney, the fireplace of which was quite open at both sides. 

8. It was still more remarkable for the whimsical peculiarity 
of having seven doors, and but one window. ‘The unceiled - 
roof of this room, with its massive painted beams, corresponds to 
the simplicity of the rest of the building, as well as shows the 
indifference of our ancestors to the free communication of 
noise and cold air, which their wiser or more fastidious de- 
scendants take so much pains to avoid. On the northeast 
corner of the house, communicating with the large centre- 
room, is a small chamber, which the general used as a study, 
or private office. 

9. Those who have had the good fortune to enjoy the ac- 
quaintance of officers of the northern division of our old army, 
have heard many a revolutionary anecdote, the scene of which 
_was laid in the old square room at Newburgh, “ with its seven 
doors and one window.” Init were every day served up, to 
as many guests as the table and chairs could accommodate, a 
dinner and a supper, as plentiful as the country could supply, 
and as good as they could be made by the continental cooks, 
whose deficiency in culinary skill drew forth in one of his 
private letters (since printed) the only piece of literary pleas- 
antry, it is believed, in which the great man was ever tempted 
to indulge. 

10. But then, as we have heard old soldiers affirm with 
great emphasis, there was always plenty of good wine. 
~ French wines for our French allies, and those who had acquired 
or who affected their tastes, and sound Madeira for the Ameri- 
cans of the old school, circulated briskly, and were taken in 


140 NORTH AMERICAN READFR. 


little silver mugs or goblets, made in France for the general’s 
camp equipage. 

11. ‘hey were accompanied by the famous apples of the 
Hudson, the Spitzenbergh and other varieties, and invariably by 
heaped: plates of hickery nuts, the amazing consumption of 
which, by the general and his staff, was the theme of bound- 
less admiration to the Marquis de Chastelleux and other 
French officers. 

12. The jest, the argument, the song, and the story, circu- 
lated as briskly as the wine ; while the chief, at the head of 
his table, sat long, listened to all, or appeared to listen, smiled 
at and enjoyed all, but all gravely, without partaking much in 
the conversation or at all contributing to the laugh, either by 
swelling its chorus or furnishing the occasion ; for he was 
neither a joker nor a story-teller. He had no talent, and ‘he 
knew he had none, for humour, repartee, or amusing anecdote ; 
and if he had possessed it, he was too wise to indulge in it in 
the position in which he was placed. 

13. One evidence, among many others, of the impression 
which Washington’s presence in this scene had made, and the 
dignity and permanence it could lend to every idea or recol- 
lection, however trivial otherwise, with which it had been ac- 
cidentally associated, was given some few years ago at Paris. 

14. ‘The American minister (we forget whether it was Mr. 
Crawford, Mr. Brown, or one of their successors), and several 
of his countrymen, together with General Lafayette, were in- 
vited to an entertainment at the house of a distinguished and 
patriotick Frenchman, who had served his country in his youth, 
in the United States, during the war of our independence. 

15. At the supper hour the company were shown into a 
room fitted up for the occasion, which contrasted quite oddly 
with the Parisian elegance of the other apartments, where they 
had spent their evening. A low, boarded, ‘painted ceiling, 
with large beams, a single, small, uncurtained window, with 
numerous small doors, as well as the general style of the 
whole, gave at first the idea of the kitchen, or largest room of 
a Dutch or Belgian farmhouse. 

16. Ona long, rough table was a repast, just as little in 
keeping with the refined kitchen of Paris, as the room was 


NORTH AMERICAN READFR, 141 


with its architecture. It consisted of large dishes of meat, 
uncouth-looking pastry, and wine in decanters and bottles, ac- 
companied by glasses and silver mugs, such as indicated other 
habits and tastes than those of modern Paris. ‘Do you 
know where we now are?” said the host to General Lafayette 
and his companions. 

17. They paused for a few moments, in suspense. They 
had seen something like this before, but when and where ? 
** Ah, the seven doors and one window,” said Lafayette, “ and 
the silver camp-goblets, such as our marshals of France used 
in my youth! We are at Washington’s Headquarters on 
the Hudson, fifty years ago!” We relate the story as we 
have heard it told by the late Colonel Fish, and, if we mistake 
not, the host was the excellent M. Marbois. 

18. There is another anecdote of a higher and more moral 
interest, the scene of which was also laid in this house. We 
remember to have heard it told by the late Colonel Willett, our 
“bravest of the brave,” then past his eightieth year, with a 
feeling that warmed the coldest of his hearers, and_made the 
tears gush into the eyes of his younger listeners. 

19. A British officer had been brought in from the river, 
a prisoner, and wounded. Some accidental circumstance had 
attracted to him General Washington’s special notice, who had 
him placed under the best medical and surgical care the army 
could afford, and ordered him to be lodged at his own quarters. 
There, according to custom, a large party of officers had 
ussembled in the evening, to sup with the commander-in-chief. 

20. When the meats and cloth were removed, the unfailing 
nuts appeared, and. the wine, a luxury seldom seen by Ameri- 
can sulbalterns, except at “his excellency’s” table, began to 
circulate. ‘The general rose much before his usual hour, but, 
putting. one of his aiddecamps in his place, requested his 
friends to remain, adding, in a gentle tone, “I have only to 
ask you to remember, in your sociality, that there is a wounded 
officer in the very next room.” 

21. This injunction had its effect for a short time, but, as 
the wine and punch passed round, the soldier’s jest and mirth 
gradually broke forth, conversation warmed into argument, and, 
by-and-by, came a song. In the midst of all this, a side-door 


142 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


opened, and some one entered in silence and on tiptoe. It 
was the general. 

22. Without a word to any of the company, he passed si- 
lently along the table, with almost noiseless tread, to the oppo- 
site door, which he opened and closed after him as gently and 
cautiously as a nurse in the sick room of a tender and beloved 
patient. The song, the story, the merriment, died away at 
once. All were hushed. All felt the rebuke, and dropped 
off quietly, one by one, to their chambers or tents. 


LESSON LVILI. 
The same concluded. 


1. But the Newburgh Headquarters are also memorable 
as the scene of a far more important transaction. In the 
autumn of 1783, the war had closed with glory. The na- 
tional independence had been won. ‘The army, which had 
fought the battles, which had gone through the hardships and 
privations, of that long, and doubtful, and bloody war without a 
murmur, were encamped on the banks of the Hudson, unpaid, 
almost unclothed, individually loaded with private debt, await- 
ing to be disbanded, and to return to the pursuits of civil life, 
without the prospect of any settlement of their long arrears of 
pay, and without the means of temporary support, until other 
prospects might open upon them in their new avocations. 

2. It was under these circumstances, while Congress, from 
the impotence of our frame of government under the old con- 
federation, and the extreme poverty of the country, found 
themselves utterly unable to advance even a single month’s 
pay, and, asif loath to meet the question, seemed but to delay 
and procrastinate any decision upon it; the impatient and suf- 
fering soldiery, losing, as their military excitement died away 
with its cause, all feeling of loyalty towards their civil rulers, 
began to regard them as cold-hearted and ungrateful masters, 
who sought to avoid the scanty and stipulated payment of those 
services, the abundant fruits of which they had already reaped. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 143 


* 


3. Then it was that the celebrated anonymous Newburgh 
letters were circulated through the camp, touching, with power- 
ful effect, upon every topick that could rouse the feelings of 
_men suffering under the sense of wrong, and sensitive to 
every stain upon their honour. ‘The glowing language of this 
address painted their country as trampling upon their rights, 
disdaining their cries, and insulting their distress. 

4. It spoke of farther acquiescence and submission to such 
injury and contumely, as exposing the high-spirited soldier to 
“the jest of tories and the scorn of whigs; the ridicule, and, 
what is worse, the pity of the world.” Finally, the writer 
called upon his fellow-soldiers, never to sheath their swords 
until they had obtained full and ample justice, and pointed dis- 
tinctly to their “ illustrious leader,” as the chief under whose 
auspices and directions they- could most boldly claim, and 
most successfully compel, the unwilling justice of their country. 

5. The power of this appeal did not consist merely in its 
animated and polished eloquence. It was far more powerful, 
and, therefore, more dangerous, because it came warm from 
the heart, and did but give bold utterance to the thoughts over 
which thousands had long brooded in silence. 

6. Precisely that state of feeling pervaded the whole army, 
that discontent towards their civil rulers, verging every hour 
more and more towards indignation and hatred, that despair of 
Justice from any other means or quarter than themselves and 
their own good swords, that rallying of all their hopes and affec- 
tions to their comrades in arms and their long-tried chief, such 
as in other times and countries, have again and again enthroned 
the successful military leader upon the ruins of the republick 
he had gloriously served. 

7.. The disinterested patriotism of Washington rejected the 
lure to his ambition; his firm and mild prudence repressed the 
discontents, and preserved the honour of the army, as well as 
the peace, and, probably, the future liberties of his country. 
It was the triumph of patriotick wisdom over the sense of in- 
jury, over misapplied genius and eloquence, over chivalrous, 
but ill-directed feeling. 

8. The opinions and the arguments of Washington, ex- 
pressed in his orders, and in the address delivered by him to 


144 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


his officers, calmed the minds of the army, and brought them, 
- at once, to a sense of submissive duty; not solely from the 
weight of moral truth and noble sentiment, great as that was, 
but because they came from a person whom the army had 
long been accustomed to love, to revere, and to obey; the 
purity of whose views, the soundness of whose judgement, 
and the sincerity of whose friendship, no man could dream of 
questioning. 

9. Shortly after, the army disbanded itself. The veterans 
laid down their swords in peace, trusting to the faith and grati- 
tude of their country, leaving the honour of the “ Continental 
Army” unstained, and the holy cause of liberty unsullied by any 
one act of rebellious, or ambitious, or selfish insubordination. 

10. They fulfilled the prophetick language of their chief, 
when, in the closing words of his address on this memorable 
occasion, he expressed his sure confidence, that their patient 
virtue, rising superiour to the pressure of the most complicated 
sufferings, would enable “ posterity to say, when speaking of 
the glorious example they had exhibited to mankind ; had this 
day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of 
perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.” 

11. Why should we dilate here on the particulars of this 
transaction? ‘They form the brightest page in our history, the 
noblest theme of our orators; but no eloquence can increase 
the interest and dignity of the narrative, as told in the plain 
language of Marshall, and in the orders and address of Wash- 
ington himself. 

‘12. Let it suffice for us to fulfil faithfully the humbler task 
of the local antiquary, which we have here undertaken to per- 
form. When any of our readers visit this scene, they will 
feel grateful to us for informing them, that it was in the little 
northeastern room of the “old stone house” at Newburgh, 
that Washington meditated on this momentous question, and 
prepared the general orders to the army, and the address, which 
he read, with such happy effect, to the military convention that 
assembled, at his invitation, on the fifteenth of October, 1783, 
at a large barrack or storehouse, then called “ the new build- 
ing,” in the immediate neighbourhood. 

13. It was but a few days after this, that, upon the lawn 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 145 


before the house, Washington finally parted with that portion 
of his army which did not accompany him to take possession 
of New York. He parted with his faithful comrades with a 
deep emotion, that contrasted strongly with the cold and calm 
serenity of manner which had distinguished him throughout 
the whole seven years of the war. 

14. That parting hour has often suggested itself to the 
writer, as affording one of the most splendid and abundant 
subjects that American history can furnish to the painter. It 
combines the richest .materials of landscape, portrait, history, 
and invention, any of which might predominate, or all be uni- 
ted, as the peculiar talent or taste of the artist might dictate. 

15. It offers to the painter, magnificent and varied scenery, 
shipping, and river craft of the old times, with their white sails 
and picturesque outlines, arms, military costume, fine horses, 
beautiful women and children with every expression of conju- 
gal and filial joy, mixed with the soldiers in groups such as art 
might dispose and contrast at its pleasure, numerous most in- 
teresting historical personages, and, above the whole, the lofty 
person and majestick presence of the chief himself, not the 
grave and venerable man we are accustomed to see in the fine 
portraits of Stuart, but still in the pride of manly and military 
grace and beauty, and melted into tenderness as he parts from 
the tried and loved companions of seven years of danger, 
hardship, and toil. 

16. Ornaments and pride of American art; Allston, Trum- 
bull, Vanderlyn, Dunlap, Cole, Sully, Morse, Inman, Weir ; 
we commend this subject to your genius, to your patriotism ! 

It is a natural and good tendency of the human mind, and 
one leading to excellent ends, that prompts the man of taste 
or the scholar to 


“‘ Worship the turf where Virgil trod, 
And think it like no other sod, 
And guard each leaf from Shakspeare’s tree, 
With Druid-like idolatry.” 


17. But how much more elevated the feeling, how much 
worthier in the motive, and salutary in the influence, are the 
emotions that throb in the patriot’s breast as he treads upon a 


146 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


soil, dignified by recollections of wisdom, of courage, of pub- 
lick virtue, such as those we have now imperfectly described ! 

18. If, therefore, to use the often-quoted, and deservedly 
often-quoted language of Johnson, “that man is little to be 
envied whose patrioti:m would not gain force upon the plains 
of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among 
the ruins of Iona :” what shall we say of the American who 
feels no glow of patriotism, who kindles not into warmer love 
for his country, and her glorious institutions, who rises into no 
grand and fervent aspiration for the virtue and the happiness 
of this people, when he enters the humble, but venerable walls, 
of the HEADQUARTERS AT NEWBURGH. 


LESSON LIX. 
On the Pleasure of Acquring Knowledge.— ALIson. 


1. In every period of life, the acquisition of knowledge is 
one of the most pleasing employments of the human mind. 
But in youth, there are circumstances which make it product- 
ive of higher enjoyment. It is then that every thing has the 
charm of novelty; that curiosity and fancy are awake ; and 
that the heart swells with the anticipations of future eminence 
and utility. 

2. Even in those lower branches of instruction which we 
call mere accomplishments, there is something always pleasing 
to the young in their acquisition. ‘They seem to become 
every well-educated person ; they adorn, if they do not dignify 
humanity ; and, what is far more, while they give an elegant 
employment to the hours of leisure and relaxation, they afford 
a means of contributing to the purity and innocence of do- 
mestick life. 

3. But in the acquisition of knowledge of the higher kind, 
in the hours when the young gradually begin the study of the 
laws of nature, and of the faculties of the human mind, or 
of the magnificent revelations of the Gospel, there is a pleas- 
ure of a sublimer nature. The cloud, which, in their infant 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 147 


years, seemed to cover nature from their view, begins gradu- 
ally to resolve. 

4. The world in which they are placed, opens with all its 
wonders upon their eye ; their powers of attention and obser- 
vation seem to expand with the scene befere them; and, while 
they see, for the first time, the immensity of the universe of 
God, and mark the majestick simplicity of those laws by which 
its operations are conducted, they feel as if they were awa- 
kened to a higher species of being, and admitted into nearer 
intercourse with the Author of Nature. 

5. It is this period, accordingly, more than all others, that 
determines our hopes or fears of the future fate of the young. 
To feel no joy in such pursuits; to listen carelessly to the 
voice which brings such magnificent instruction; to see the 
veil raised which conceals the counsels of the Deity, and to 
show no emotion at the discovery, are symptoms of a weak 
and torpid spirit, of a mind unworthy of the adyantages it pos- 
sesses, and fitted only for the humility of sensual and ignoble 
pleasure. 

6. Of those, on the contrary, who distinguish themselves 
by the love of knowledge, who follow with ardour the career 
that is open to them, we are apt to form the most honour- 
able presages. It is the character which is natural to youth, 
and which, therefore, promises well of their maturity. We 
foresee for them, at least, a life of pure and virtuous enjoy- 
ment, and we are willing to anticipate no common share of 
future usefulness and.splendour. 

7. In the second place, the pursuits of knowledge lead not 
only to happiness, but to honour. “ Length of days is in her 
right hand, and in her left are riches and honour.” It is hon- 
ourable to excel even in the most trifling species of knowledge, 
in those which can amuse only the passing hour. It is more 
honourable to excel in those different branches of science 
which are connected with the liberal professions of life, and 
which tend so much to the dignity and wellbeing of humanity. 

8. It is the means of raising the most obscure to esteem 
and attention; it opens to the just ambition of youth, some 
of the most distinguished and respected situations in society ; 
and it places them there with the consoling reflection, that it 


G2 


148 ' NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


is to their own industry and labour, in the providence of God, 
that they are alone indebted for them. But, to excel in the © 
higher attainments of knowledge, to be distinguished in those 
greater pursuits which have commanded the attention and ex- 
hausted the abilities of the wise in every former age, is, per- 
haps, of all the distinctions of human understanding, the most 
honourable and grateful. 

9. When we lovk back upon the great men who have gone 
before us in every path of glory, we feel our eye turn from 
the career of war and of ambition, and involuntarily rest upon 
those who have displayed the great truths of religion, who 
have investigated the laws of social welfare, or extended the 
sphere of human knowledge. These are honours, we feel, 
which have been gained without a crime, and which can be 
enjoyed without remorse. They are honours also which can 
never die, which can shed lustre even upon the humblest nead, 
and to which the young of every succeeding age will look up 
as their brightest incentives to the pursuit of virtuous fame. 


LESSON LX. 


A Scene nearly two Centuries ago on the River Hudson.— - 
IrvING. 


1. Witpnegss and savage majesty reigned on the borders 
of this mighty river; the hand of cultivation had not as yet 
Jaid low the dark forests, and tamed the features of the land- 
scape ; nor had the frequent sail of commerce yet broken in 
upon the profound and awful solitude of ages. 

2. Here and there might be seen a rude wigwam perched 
among the cliffs of the mountains, with its curling column of 
smoke mounting in the transparent atmosphere; but so loftily 
situated, that the whoopings of the savage children, gambol- 
ling on the margin of the dizzy heights, fell almost as faintly 
on the ear, as do the notes of the lark, when lost in the azure 
vault of heaven. 

3. Now and then, from the beetling brow of some rocky 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 149 


precipice, the wild deer would look timidly down upon the 
splendid pageant as it passed below; and then, tossing his 
branching antlers high in air, would bound away into the 
thickest of the forest. 

4. Through such scenes did the stately vessel of Peter 
Stuyvesant pass. Now did they skirt the bases of the rocky 
heights of Jersey, which spring up like everlasting walls, 
reaching from the waves unto the heavens; and were fash- 
ioned, if tradition may be believed, in times long past, by the 
mighty spirit of Manetho, to protect his favourite abodes from 
the unhallowed eyes of mortals, 

5. Now did they career it gayly across the vast expanse of 
Tappan Bay, whose wide extended shores present a vast va- 
riety of delectable scenery; here the bold promontory, crowned 
with imbowering trees, advancing into the bay; there the long 
woodland slope, sweeping up from the shore in rich luxuriance, 
and terminating in the upland precipice; while at a distance, 
a long line of rocky heights threw gigantick shades across the 
water. 

6. Now would they pass where some modest little interval, 
opening among these stupendous scenes, yet retreating as it 
were for protection into the embraces of the neighbouring 
mountains, displayed a rural paradise, fraught with sweet and 
pastoral beauties ; the velvet tufted Jawn, the bushy copse, the 
tinkling rivulet, stealing through the fresh and vivid verdure, 
on whose banks were situated some little Indian village, or, 
peradventure, the rude cabin of some solitary hunter. 

7. The different periods of the revolving day seemed each, 
with cunning magick, to diffuse a different charm over the 
scene. Now would the jovial sun break gloriously from the 
east, blazing from the summits of the eastern hills, and spark- 
ling the landscape with a thousand dewy gems; while along 
the borders of the river were seen heavy masses of mist, 
which, like caitiffs disturbed at his approach, made a sluggish 
retreat, rolling in sullen reluctance up the mountains. 

8. At such times all was brightness, and life, and gayety ; 
the atmosphere seemed of an indescribable pureness and 
transparency ; the birds broke forth in wanton madrigals, and 
the freshening breezes wafted the vessel merrily on her 


150. x NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


course. But when the sun sunk amidst a flood of glory in 
the west, mantling the heavens and the earth with a thousand 
gorgeous dies, then all was calm, and silent, and magnificent. 

9. The late swelling sail hung lifeless against the mast ; 
the simple seaman, with folded arms, leaned against the shrouds, 
lost in that involuntary musing which the sober grandeur of 
nature commands in the rudest of her children. The vast 
bosom of the Hudson was like an unruffled mirror, reflecting 
the golden splendour of the heavens, excepting that now and 
then a bark canoe would steal across its surface, filled with 
painted savages, whose gay feathers glared brightly, as per- 
chance a lingering ray of the setting sun gleamed on them 
from the western mountains. 

10. But when the hour of twilight spread its magick mists 
around, then did the face of nature assume a thousand fugitive 
charms, which, to the worthy heart that seeks enjoyment in the 
glorious works of its Maker, are inexpressibly captivating. 
‘The mellow dubious light that prevailed, just served to tinge 
with illusive colours the softened features of the scenery. 

11. The deceived but delighted eye sought vainly to dis- 
cern, in the broad masses of shade, the separating line between 
land and water; or to distinguish the fading objects that 
seemed sinking into chaos. Now did the busy fancy supply 
the feebleness of vision, producing, with industrious craft, a 
fairy creation of her own. 

12. Under her plastick wand the barren rocks frowned 
upon the watery waste, in the semblance of lofty towers and 
high embattled castles ; trees assumed the direful forms of 
mighty giants, and the inaccessible summits of the mountains 
seemed peopled with a thousand shadowy beings. 

13. Now broke forth from the shores the notes of an in- 
numerable variety of insects, who filled the air with a strange 
but not inharmonious concert ; while ever and anon was heard 
the melancholy plaint of the whippoorwill, who, perched on 
some lone tree, wearied the ear of night with its incessant 
moanings. ‘The mind, soothed into a hallowed melancholy by 
the solemn mystery of the scene, listened with pensive stillness 
to catch and distinguish each sound that vaguely echoed from 
the shore. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 151 


LESSON LXI. 


Impressions derived from the study of History.—VERPLANCK. 


1. Tue study of the history of most other nations, fills the 
mind with sentiments not unlike those which the American 
traveller feels on entering the venerable and lofty cathedral of 
soine proud old city of Europe. Its solemn grandeur, its vast 
ness, its obscurity, strike awe to his heart. 

2. From the richly painted windows, filled with sacred em- 
blems and strange antique forms, a dim religious light falls 
around. A thousand recollections of romance, and poetry, 
and legendary story, come crowding in uponhim. He is sur- 
rounded by the tombs of the mighty dead, rich with the labours 
of ancient art, and emblazoned with the pomp of heraldry. 

3. What names does he read upon them? ‘Those of 
princes and nobles, who are now remembered only for their 
vices, and of sovereigns, at whose death no tears were shed, 
and whose memories lived not an hour in the affections of 
their people. ‘There, too, he sees other names, long familiar 
to him for their guilty or ambiguous fame. There rest the 
bloodstained soldier of fortune; the orator, who was ever 
the ready apologist of tyranny ; great scholars, who were the 
pensioned flatterers of power; and poets, who profaned the 
high gift of genius, to pamper the vices of a corrupted court. 

4, Our own history, on the contrary, like that poetical tem- 
ple of Fame, which was reared by the imagination of Chau- 
cer, and decorated by the taste of Pope, is almost exclusively 
dedicated to the memory of the truly great. Or rather, like 
the Pantheon of Rome, it stands in calm and severe beauty, 
amidst the ruins of ancient magnificence, and “ the toys of 
modern state.” 

5. Within, no idle ornament encumbers its bold simplicity. 
The pure light of heaven enters from above, and sheds an equal 
and serene radiance around. As the eye wanders about its 
extent, it beholds the unadorned monuments of brave and good 
men, who have greatly bled or toiled for their country; or it 


152 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


rests on votive tablets, inscribed with the names of the best 
benefactors of mankind. 

6. No, Land of Liberty! thy children have no cause to 
blush for thee. What though the arts have reared few monu- 
ments among us, and scarce a trace of the muse’s footstep is 
found in the paths of our forests, or along the banks of our 
rivers ; yet our soil has been consecrated by the blood of he- 
roes, and by great and holy deeds of peace. Its wide extent 
has become one vast temple and hallowed asylum, sanctified 
by the prayers and blessings of the persecuted of every sect, 
and the wretched of all nations. 

7. Land of Refuge ; Land of Benedictions! Those prayers 
still arise, and they still are heard. ‘ May peace be within 
thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces ;” ‘* May there 
be no decay, no leading into captivity, and no complaining, in 
thy streets ;” ** May truth flourish out of the earth, and righte- 
ousness look down trom Heaven.” 


LESSON LXII. 
Night.—MonTcomery. 


1. Nicurt is the time for rest ; 
How sweet, when labours close, 
To gather round an aching breast 
The curtain of repose ; 
Stretch the tired limbs and lay the head 
Upon our own delightful bed ! 


2. Night is the time for dreams, 
The gay romance of life ; 
When truth that is, and truth that seems, 
Blend in fantastick strife ; 
Ah! visions less beguiling far, 
Than waking dreams by daylight are ! 
3. Night is the time for toil ; 
To plough the classick field, 
Intent to find the buried spoil 
Its wealthy furrows yield ; 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Till all is ours that sages taught, 
That poets sang, or heroes wrought. 
. Night is the time to weep ; 

To wet, with unseen tears, 
Those graves of memory, where sleep 

The joys of other years ; 
Hopes that were angels in their birth, 
But perished young, like things of earth! 
. Night is the time to watch ; 

On ocean’s dark expanse, 
To hail the Pleiades, or catch 

‘The full moon’s earliest glance, 
That brings unto the homesick mind 
All we have loved and left behind. 
. Night is the time for care ; 

Brooding on hours mispent, 
To see the spectre of despair 

Come to our lonely tent ; 
Like Brutus midst his slumbering host, 
Startled by Cesar’s stalworth ghost. 


. Night is the time to muse ; 
Then from the eye the soul 
Takes flight, and with expanding views, 
Beyond the starry pole, 
Descries, athwart the abyss of night, 
The dawn of uncreated light. 
. Night is the time to pray ; 
Our Saviour oft withdrew 
To desert mountains far away, 
So will his followers do ; 
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, 
And hold communion there with God. 
. Night is the time for death ; 
When all around is peace, 
Calmly to yield the weary breath, 
From sin and suffering cease ; 


Think of Heaven’s bliss, and give the sign 


To parting friends: such death be mine! 
G3 


3 


153 


154 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LXIII. 


On the relative Value of Good Sense and Beauty in the Female 
Sex.— Literary GazeTTE. 


1. Notwithstanding the lessons of moralists, and the dec- 
lamations of philosophers, it cannot be denied that all man- 
kind have a natural love, and even respect, for external beauty. 
In vain do they represent it as a thing of no value in itself, as 
a frail and perishable flower; in vain do they exhaust all the 
depths of argument, all the stores of fancy, to prove the worth- 
lessness of this amiable gift of Nature. 

2. However persuasive their reasonings may appear, and 
however we may for a time fancy ourselves convinced by them, 
we have in our breasts a certain instinct, which never fails to 
tell us that all is not satisfactory; and, though we may not be 
able to prove that they are wrong, we feel a conviction that it 
is impossible they should be right. 

3. They are certainly right in blaming those who are ren- 
dered vain by the possession of beauty, since vanity is at all 
times a fault; but there is a great difference between being 
vain of a thing, and being happy that we have it; and that 
beauty, however little merit a woman can claim to herself for 
it, is really a quality which she may reasonably rejoice to pos- 
sess, demands, I think, no very laboured proof. 

4, Kvery one naturally wishes to please. ‘T’o this end we 
know how important it is, that the first impression we produce 
should be favourable. Now this first impression is commonly 
produced through the medium of the eye; and this is fre- 
quently so powerful as to resist, for a long time, the opposing 
evidence of subsequent observation. 

5. Leta man of even the soundest judgement be presented 
to two women, equally strangers to him, but the one extremely 
handsome, the other without any remarkable advantages of 
person, and he will, without deliberation, attach himself first 
to the former. All men seem in this to be actuated by the 
same principle as Socrates, who used to say, that when he 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 155 


saw a beautiful person, he always expected to see it animated 
by a beautiful soul. 

6. The ladies, however, often fall into the fatal errour of 
imagining that a fine person is, in our eyes, superiour to every 
other accomplishment; and, those who are so happy as to be 
endowed with it, rely, with vain confidence, on its irresistible 
power, to retain hearts as well as to subdue them. 

7. Hence the lavish care bestowed on. the improvement of 
exteriour and perishable charms, and the neglect of solid and 
durable excellence ; hence the long list of arts that administer 
to vanity and folly, the countless train of glittering accom- 
plishments, and the scanty catalogue of truly valuable acquire- 
ments, which compose, for the most part, the modern system 
of fashionable female education. | 

8. Yet so far is beauty from being in our eyes an excuse 
for the want of a cultivated mind, that the women who are 
blessed with it, have, in reality, a much harder task to perform, 
than those of their sex who are not so distinguished. Even 
our self-love here takes part against them; we feel ashamed 
of having suffered ourselves to be caught, like children, by 
mere outside, and perhaps even fall into the contrary extreme. 

9. Could “the statue that enchants the world,” the Venus 
de Medicis, at the prayer of some new Pygmalion, become 
suddenly animated, how disappointed would he be if she were 
not endowed with a soul answerable to the inimitable perfec- 
tion of her heavenly form? ‘Thus it is with a fine woman, 
whose only accomplishment is external excellence. She may 
dazzle for a time, but when a man has once thought, “ what 
a pity that such a master-piece should be a walking statue,” 
her empire is at an end. 

10. On the other hand, when a woman, the plainness of 
whose features prevented our noticing her at first, is found, 
upon nearer acquaintance, to be possessed of the more solid 
and valuable perfections of the mind, the pleasure we feel in 
being so agreeably undeceived, makes her appear to still 
greater advantage ; and as the mind of man, when left to it- 
self, is naturally an enemy to all injustice, we, even unknown ° 
to ourselves, strive to repair the wrong we have involuntarily 
done her, by a double portion of attention and regard. 


156 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


11. If these observations be founded in truth, it will appear 
that, though a woman with a cultivated mind may justly hope 
to please, without even any superiour advantages of person, 
the loveliest creature that ever came from the hand of her 
Creator, can hope only for a transitory empire, unless she 
unite with her beauty the more durable charm of intellectual 
excellence. 

12. The favoured child of nature, who combines in herself 
these united perfections, may be justly considered as the ma- 
ster-piece of the creation, as the most perfect image of the Di- 
vinity here below. Man, the proud lord of the creation, bows 
willingly his haughty neck beneath her gentle rule. Exalted, 
tender, beneficent, is the love that she inspires. 

13. Even Time himself shall respect the all-powerful 
magick of her beauty. Her charms may fade, but they shall 
never wither; and memory still, in the evening of life, hang- 
ing with fond affection over the blanched rose, shall view, 
through the veil of lapsed years, the tender bud, the dawning 
promise, whose beauties once blushed before the beams of the 
morning sun. 


LESSON LXIV. 
Little Things destroy Character.—D G. Spracove. 


1. Two individuals, who appear equal as to intellectual 
capacities, and acquaintance with the business and occupation 
in which they are engaged, and who seem equally desirous to 
acquire property, are often greatly different as to success. 
One is prosperous and thriving in business; the other fails, 
and becomes a worthless bankrupt. 

2. When we search to find the causes which have con- 
tributed to produce this diversity; in the one, the deserved 
reputation for skilful and successful management in business ; 
to the other, that of utter failure, and the sacrifice of all con- 
fidence and trust; we ordinarily must trace back to little 
things. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 157 


3. The one, probably, has commenced business with a 
definite plan and system, in which all the parts harmonize, and 
go to-form a consistent whole. Every thing is balanced and 
equalized, and this contributes to aid and secure the desired 
result. Nothing is. so left as to oppose and counteract, and 
occasion perplexity and disappointment. 

4. The other, though perhaps equally industrious, has no 
settled plan. N othing is controlled by previous preparation. 
Hence, circumstances unforeseen and unexpected occur, and 
different interests thwart each other, and disappointment and 
want of success ensue. ‘The loss of reputation for good 
management is, in this case, to be traced to a little circum- 
stance. Perhaps, by only a few moments’ consideration in 
forming a plan, adapted toa state of things which might 
have been anticipated, success would have been secured. 

5. Again, disregard to the loss of a little time in our em- 
ployment, is the cause to which may often be traced the want 
of success in temporal things. ‘The expense of idleness is 
ordinarily to be computed in two ways, in order to make a 
correct estimation, and perceive its operation to produce loss 
of reputation. The idler of but single hours, not only loses 
what the industrious in the same time acquires, but an ex- 
pense also accrues, ordinarily, in the dissipation of that idle 
hour. 

6. And that period of time which, considered by itself, is 
indeed but short, is yet, by often repetition, found to amount 
to days and weeks. He that idles but little daily, may yet 
find, on definite computation for a single year, that he has 
done much to occasion loss of reputation in business. 

7. The same is true in literary pursuits. He who daily 
loses but one hour in study, in a few years has made a sacri- 
fice of time and opportunity for improvement, sufficient to 
account for the loss of literary reputation. 

8. But the temperate drinker of ardent spirits (as he wishes 
to be called) furnishes, perhaps, the most striking illustration 
of little expenses ruining the reputation in business. The 
daily six cents for liquor, in a few years, amount to a sum > 
sufficient to sustain a family in reputation for affluence. Yet 
the six cents daily, though they soon amount to a considerable 


158 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


sum, are, when compared with their accompaniments in dis- 
astrous effects, but as the far distant and scarcely perceptible 
movement in the ocean, which gives the first intimation of 
approach to the awful whirlpool, whose impetuous torrent 
irresistibly urges on to the vortex of ruin. 

9. How often has the deadly poison blasted the reputation 
of him who was in esteem for wisdom and honour, and fur- 
nished the awful spectacle of a human being as loathsome as 
the polluted ointment of the apothecary, sending forth its un- 
pleasant savour ? 

10. We shall most often find, that it is little things which 
go to make the difference between two individuals, one of 
whom creates general esteem, and the other dislike. One is 
attentive to little things, in appearance and manner of inter- 
‘course ; the other is regardless of these. The consequence 
is, one imperceptibly intwines himself in the affectionate re- 
gard of all; the other alienates the feelings, and occasions 
disaffection, and at length a fixed dislike and aversion. 

11. The obligation of every one to seek and promote his 
own and his neighbour’s happiness, requires attention to this 
practical fact; and, publick opinion cannot with propriety be 
wholly disregarded, as to our dress and external appearance. 
A suitable regard to this subject is productive of happy effects 
upon society ; and, though a total disregard to custom, habits, 
and fashions, may not incur moral guilt, it is certainly unhappy 
in its influence upon us as social beings. 

12. Disregard to cleanliness and an adjustment of our 
clothing is an impropriety, which will be construed into dis- 
respect, if not contempt, for those in whose society we mingle. 
Whereas the suitable regard to these, presents the person in a 
manner most favourable for securing influence and esteem. 


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NORTH AMERICAN READER. 159 


LESSON LXY. 
Mont Blanc in the Gleam of Sunset.—Griscom. 


1. We arrived, before sundown, at the village of St. Martin, 
where we were to stay for the night. The evening being re- 
markably fine, we crossed the Arve on a beautiful bridge, and 
walked over to Salenche, a very considerable village, oppo- 
site to St. Martin, and ascended a hill to view the effect of the 
sun’s declining light upon Mont Blanc. The scene was 
truly grand. 

2. The broad range of the mountain was fully before us, of 
a pure and almost glowing white, apparently to its very base ; 
and which, contrasted with the brown teints of the adjoining 
mountains, greatly heightened the novelty of the scene. We 
could scarcely avoid the conclusion, that this vast pile of snow 
was very near us; and yet its base was not less than fifteen, 
and its summit, probably, more than twenty miles, from the 
place where we stood. . 

3. The varying rays of light produced by reflection from 
the snow, passing, as the sun’s rays declined, from a brilliant 
white through purple and pink, and ending in the gentle light, 
which the snow gives after the sun has set, afforded.an exhi- 
bition in opticks upon a scale of grandeur, which no other 
region in the world could probably excel. 

4. Never in my life have my feelings been so powerfully 
affected by mere scenery, as they were in this day’s excursion. 
The excitement, though attended by sensations awfully im- 
pressive, is nevertheless so finely attempered by the glow of 
novelty, incessantly mingled with astonishment and admira- 
tion, as to produce on the whole a feast of delight. 

5. A few years ago I stood upon Table Rock, and placed 
my cane in the descending flood of Niagara. Its tremen- 
dous roar almost entirely precluded conversation with the 
friend at my side; while its whirlwind of mist and foam filled 
the air to a great distance around me. ‘The rainbow sported 


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160 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


in its bosom; the gulf below exhibited the wild fury of an 
immense boiling caldron; while the rapids above, for the 
space of nearly a mile, appeared like a mountain of billows, 
chafing and dashing against each other with thundering im- 
petuosity, in their eager strife to gain the precipice, and take 
the awful leap. 

6. In contemplating this scene, my imagination and my 
heart were filled with sublime and tender emotions. The soul 
seemed to be brought a step nearer to the presence of that in- 
comprehensible Being, whose spirit dwelt in every feature of - 
the cataract, and directed all its amazing energies. Yet in 
the scenery of this day there was more of a pervading sense 
of awful and unlimited grandeur: mountain piled upon mount- 
ain in endless continuity throughout the whole extent, and 
crowned by the brightest effulgence of an evening sun, upon 
the everlasting snows of the highest pinnacle of Europe. 


LESSON LXVI. 
The Deluge.—Bow es. 


1. ALL was one waste of waves, that buried deep 
Earth and its multitudes ; the Ark alone, 
High on the cloudy van of Ararat 
Rested ; for now the death-commissioned storm 
Sinks silent, and the eye of day looks out 
Dim through the haze, while short successive gleams 
Flit o’er the face of deluge as it shrinks, 
Or the transparent rain-drops, falling few, 
Distinct and larger glisten. 


2. So the Ark 
Rests upon Ararat ; but naught around 
Its inmates can behold, save o’er the expanse 
Of boundless waters, the sun’s orient orb 
Stretching the hull’s long shadow, or the moon 
In silence, through the silver-cinctured clouds, 


3. 


4. 


5. 


6. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. {6l 


Sailing, as she herself were lost, and left 
In Nature’s loneliness. 


But oh, sweet Hope, 
Thou bidst a tear of holy ecstasy 
Start to their eyelids, when at night the Dove, 
Weary, returns, and lo! an olive Jeaf 
Wet in her bill: again she is put forth, 
When the seventh morn shines on the hoar abyss : 
Due evening comes ; her wings are heard no more! 


The dawn awakes, not cold and dripping sad, 
But cheered with lovelier sunshine ; far away 
The dark-red mountains slow their naked peaks 
Upheave above the waste: Inaus gleams ; 
Fume the huge torrents on his desert sides ; 
Till at the voice of HIM who rules 

The storm, the ancient Father and his train 

On the dry land descend. 


Here let us pause ; 
No noise in the vast circuit of the globe 
Is heard: no sound of human stirring: none 
Of pasturing herds, or wandering flocks; or song 
Of birds that solace the forsaken woods 
From morn till eve, save in that spot that holds 
The sacred ark ; there the glad sounds ascend, 
And. nature listens to the breath of life. 


The fleet horse bounds, high-neighing to the wind, 
That lifts his streaming mane ; the heifer lows ; 
Loud sings the lark amidst the rainbow hues ; 
The lion lifts him muttering ; Man comes forth ; 
He kneels upon the earth; he kisses it; 

And to the GOD who stretched the radiant bow, 
He lifts his trembling transports. 


162 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LXVII. 


The Debt due to the Soldiers of the Revolution. 


Extract from Peleg Sprague’s Speech, on a bill for the relief of the surviving 
Officers of the Army of the Revolution, delivered in the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States, April 25, 1826. 


1. Mr. Cuairman,—In relation to the bill now before us, 
the amendment of which provides for the relief of the soldiers 
of the Revolution, I would ask, sir, Who are the men whom 
we have thus grievously wronged? Are they mere hirelings, 
to whom we should be content to weigh out justice by the grain 
and scruple, or are they our greatest earthly benefactors ? 

2. They were actuated by higher and purer motives than 
any soldiers that ever assembled, and exhibited a spectacle of 
unyielding fortitude and self-denying magnanimity unequalled 
in the annals of mankind. Others, under a momentary en- 
thusiasm, or in the hurrying fever of battle, have fought as 
desperately. Others, when far from succour and from their 
country, have endured and persevered for individual self-pres- 
ervation. 

3. But where, in all history, is an example of a soldiery, 
with no power to control them, who, in a single day, perhaps, - 
could have reached their homes in safety, voluntarily continu- 
ing to endure such protracted miseries, from no motive but 
inward principles and a sense of duty? They were imbued 
with a loftier and more expanded spirit of patriotism and phil- 
anthropy, and achieved more for the happiness of their country 
and of mankind, than any army that ever existed. And where 
is there an example of moral sublimity equal to their last act 
of self-devotion, after peace and independence had been ac- 
quired ? 

4, That army, which had dared the power and humbled the 
pride of Britain, and wrested a nation from her grasp; that 
army, with swords in their hands, need not have sued and beg- 
ged for justice. No, sir; they could have righted their own 


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NORTH AMERICAN READER. 163 


wrongs, and meted out their own rewards. ‘The country was 
prostrate before them; and if they had raised their arms. and 
proclaimed themselves sovereign, where was the power that 
could have resisted their sway! ‘They were not unconscious 
of their strength, nor did they want incitements to use it. 

5. The author of the celebrated Newburgh letters told 
them, Your country disdains your cries, and tramples upon 
your distresses. He conjured them, in the most eloquent and 
energetick language, to exert the power which they held, and 
never to lay down their arms until ample justice had been ob- 
tained. What was their answer? With one voice, they 
spurned the dark suggestions, voluntarily surrendered their 
arms, and submitted themselves, unconditionally, to the civil 
power. . 

6. They quietly dispersed, and parted for their homes, in 
every part of your wide domain, unrewarded, penniless, car- 
rying with them nothing but the proud consciousness of the 
purity and dignity of their conduct, and a firm reliance upon 
their country’s honour and their country’s faith. And what 
return has been made to them? Have they not found your 
high-blown honour a painted bubble, and your plighted faith a 
broken reed? Have not the petitions of the soldiers of the 
revolution been disregarded? Have they not grown old in 
poverty? Do they not now owe the miserable remnant of 
their lives to charity? Sir, if we change not our conduct tow- 
ards them, it must crimson with shame the front of history. 

7. It has been said by the gentleman from Virginia, that we 
have already made provision for the poor and the necessitous, 
and that we ought to go no farther. Sir, the soldiers of the 
revolution have a claim of right upon us, and I would do equal 
and ample justice to all, and not mete it out with a stinted and 
partial hand. I would not make the payment of our debts to 
depend upon the poverty of our creditors. 

8. No, sir; I would not say to the heroes who fought our 
battles, and, in the dark hour of our adversity, wrought out our 
political salvation, and to whom we delivered only tattered 
rags, and called them, in mockery, payment for their services ; 
men, whose disinterested achievements are not transcended in 
all the annals of chivalry, and who, for us, confronted horrours 


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164 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


not surpassed in all the histories of all the martyrs; to these 
men, of honour most cherished, and sentiments most exalted ; 
our fathers, the authors of our being ; 

9. I would not now say, Come before us in the garb of 
mendicants: how your proud spirits in the dust; tear open 
the wounds of the heart, which you have concealed from every 
eye, and expose your nakedness to a cold, unfeeling world, 
and put all upon record, as a perpetual memorial of your coun- 
try’s ingratitude ; and then, we will bestow a pittance in char- 
ity' You talk of erecting statues, and marble memorials of 
the Father of his country. 

10. It is well. But could his spirit now be heard within 
these walls, would it not tell you, that, to answer his fervent 
prayers, and verify his confident predictions of your gratitude 
to his companions in arms, would be a sweeter incense, a more 
grateful homage to his memory, than the most splendid mau- 
soleum? You gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to La- 
fayette. It was well; and the whole country resounded amen. 
But is not the citizen soldier, who fought by his side, who de- 
voted every thing to your service, and has been deprived of his 
promised reward, equally entitled, I will not say to your liber- 
ality, but to your justice ? 

11. Yet, some gentlemen tell us, that even the present law 
is too liberal; that it goes too far, and they would repeal it. 
They would take back even the little which they have given! 
And is this possible? Look abroad upon this widely extended 
land, upon its wealth, its happiness, its hopes; and then turn 
to the aged soldier, who gave you all, and see him descend, 
in neglect and poverty, to the tomb! The time is short. A 
few years, and these remnants of a former age will no longer 
be seen. 

12. Then we shall indulge unavailing regrets for our pres- 
ent apathy: for, how can the ingenuous mind look upon the 
grave of an injured benefactor? How poignant the reflection, 
that the time for reparation and atonement has gone for ever! 
In what bitterness of soul shall we look back upon the infatu- 
ation, which shall have cast aside an opportunity, which never 
can return, to give peace to our consciences! We shall then 
endeavour to stifle our convictions, by empty honours to their 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 165 


bones. We shall raise high the monument, and trumpet loud 
their deeds, but it will be all in vain. 

13. It cannot warm the hearts, which shall have sunk cold 
and comfortless tothe earth. This isnoillusion. How often 
do we see, in our publick gazettes, a pompous display of hon- 
ours to the memory of some veteran patriot, who was suffered 
to linger out his latter days in unregarded penury ! 

‘“*‘ How proud we can press to the funeral array 
Of him whom we shunned in his sickness and sorrow ; 

And bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, 

Whose pall shall be borne up by nobles to-morrow.” 

14. We are profuse in our expressions of gratitude to the 
soldiers of the Revolution. We can speak long and loud in 
their praise ; but when asked to bestow something substantial 
upon them, we hesitate and palter. T’o them we owe every 
thing, even the soil which we tread, and the air of freedom 
which we breathe. Let us not turn them houseless from hab 
itations which they have erected, and refuse them even a pit 
tance from the exuberant fruits of their own labours. 


LESSON LXVIII. 
The Escape.—Miss Sepewick. 


1. On a point of land, at the junction of the Oswegatchie 
with the St. Lawrence, is a broken stone wall, the remains of 
a fortification. Tradition says, that a commandant of this 
fort (which was built by the French to protect their traders 
against the savages), married a young Iroquois, who was, be- 
fore or after the marriage, converted to the Catholick faith. 

2. She was the daughter of a chieftain of her tribe, and great 
efforts were made by her people to induce her to return to 
them. Her brother lurked in this neighbourhood, and pro- 
cured interviews with her, and attempted to win her back by 
all the motives of national pride and family affection ; but all 
in vain. 

3. The young Garanga, or, to call her by her baptismal 

¢ 


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166 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


name, Marguerite, was bound by a threefold cord; her love 
to her husband, to her son, and to her religion. Mecumeh, 
her brother, finding persuasion ineffectual, had recourse to 
stratagem. The commandant was in the habit of going down 
‘the river on fishing excursions, and when he returned, he would 
fire his signal gun, and Marguerite and her boy would hasten 
to the shore to greet him. 

4. On one occasion, he had been gone longer than usual. 
Marguerite was filled with apprehensions, natural enough at a 
time when imminent dangers and hairbreadth escapes were 
of everyday occurrence. She had sat in the tower and 
watched for the returning canoe, till the last beam of day had 
faded from the waters; the deepening shadows of twilight 
played tricks with her imagination. 

5. Once she was startled by the waterfowl, which, as it 
skimmed along the surface of the water, imaged to her fancy 
the light canoe, impelled by her husband’s vigorous arm; again 
she heard the leap of the heavy muskalongi, and the splashing 
waters sounded to her fancy like the first dash of the oar. 
That passed away, and disappointment and tears followed. 
Her boy was beside her; the young Louis, who, though 
scarcely twelve years old, already had his imagination filled 
with daring deeds. 

6. Born and bred in a fort, he was an adept in the use of 
the bow and the musket; courage seemed to be his instinct, 
and danger his element, and battles and wounds were “ house- 
hold words” with him. He laughed at his mother’s fears ; 
but, in spite of his boyish ridicule, they strengthened, till ap- 
prehension seemed reality. 

7. Suddenly the sound of the signal gun broke on the still- 
ness of the night. Both mother and son sprang on their feet 
with a cry of joy, and were pressing hand in hand towards the 
outer gate, when a sentinel stopped them to remind Marguerite 
it was her husband's order, that'no one should venture without 
the walls after sunset. She, however, insisted on passing, 
and telling the soldier that she would answer to the command- 
ant for his breach of orders, she passed the outer barrier. 

8. Young Louis held up his bow and arrow before the sen- 
tinel, saying, gayly, “I am my mother’s bodyguard, you 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 167 


know.” Tradition has preserved these trifling circumstances, 
‘as the events that followed rendered.them memorable. ‘“ The 
listance,” continued the stranger, “from the fort to the place 
where the commandant moored his canoe, was trifling, and 
quickly passed.” Marguerite and Louis flew along the nar- 
row footpath, reached the shore, and were in the arms of— 
Mecumeh and his fierce companions. 

9. Entreaties and resistance were alike vain. Resistance 
was made with a manly spirit by young Louis, who drew a 
knife from the girdle of one of the Indians, and attempted to 
plunge it into the bosom of Mecumeh, who was roughly bind- 
ing his wampum belt over Marguerite’s mouth, to deaden the 
sound of her screams. The uncle wrested the knife from 
him, and smiled proudly on him, as if he recognised in the 
brave boy a scion from his own stock. 

10. The Indians had two canoes; Marguerite was con- 
veyed to one, Louis to the other ; and both canoes were rowed 
into the Oswegatchie, and up the stream, as fast as it was pos- 
sible to impel them against the current of the river. 

11. Not a word or cry escaped the boy: he seemed intent 
on some purpose; and, when the canoe approached near the 
shore, he took off a military cap he wore, and threw it so 
skilfully, that it lodged, where he meant it should, on the branch 
of a tree which projected over the water. There was a long 
white feather in the cap. The Indi had observed the boy’s 
movement; they held up their oars for a moment, and seemed 
to consult whether they should return and remove the cap ; 
but, after a moment, they again dashed their oars in the water, 
and proceeded forward. 

12. They continued rowing for a few miles, and then landed, 
hid their canoes behind some trees on the river’s bank, and 
plunged into the woods with their prisoners. It seems to 
have been their intention to return to their canoes in the 
morning, and they had not proceeded far from the shore, when 
they kindled a fire and prepared some food, and offered a share 
of it to Marguerite and Louis. 

13. Poor Marguerite, as may be supposed, had no mind to 
eat; but Louis, saith tradition, ate as heartily as if he had been 
safe within the walls of the fort. After the supper, the Indians 


168 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


stretched themselves before the fire ; but not tll they had taken 
the precaution to bind Marguerite toa tree, and to compel Louis 
to lie down in the arms of his uncle Mecumeh. 

14. Neither of the prisoners closed their eyes. Louis 
kept his fixed on his mother. She sat upright beside an oak 
tree; the cord was fastened around her waist, and bound 
around the tree, which had been blasted by lightning ; the 
moon poured its beams through the naked branches upon her 
face, convulsed with the agony of despair and fear. With 
one hand she held a crucifix to her lips, the other was on her 
rosary. 

15. The sight of his mother in such a situation, stirred up 
daring thoughts in the bosom of the heroick boy; but he lay 
powerless in his uncle’s naked, brawny arms. He tried to dis- 
engage himself, but, at the slightest movement, Mecumeh, 
though still sleeping, seemed conscious, and strained him closer 
to him. At last the strong sleep, that in the depth of the night 
steeps the senses in utter forgetfulness, overpowered him; his 
arms relaxed their hold and dropped beside him, and left 
Louis free. 

16. He rose cautiously, looked for one instant on the In- 
dians, and assured himself they all slept profoundly. He then 
possessed himself of Mecumeh’s knife, which lay at his feet, 
and severed the cord that, bound his mother to the tree. Nei- 
ther of them spoke a woul; but, with the least possible sound, 
they resumed the way by which they had come from the shore ; 
Louis in the coniidence, and Marguerite with the faint hope, of 
reaching it before they were overtaken. 

17. It may be imagined how often the poor mother, timid 
as a fawn, was startled by the evening breeze stirring the 
leaves; but the boy bounded forward as if there were neither 
fear nor danger in the world. They had nearly attained the 
margin of the river, where Louis meant to launch one of the 
canoes and drop down the current, when the Indian yell, re- 
sounding through the woods, struck on their ears. They 
were missed, pursued, and, escape was impossible, Mar- 

_ guerite, panick-struck, sunk to the ground. 

18. Nothing could check the career of Louis. ‘ On, on, 

mother,” he cried, “to the shore, te the shore.” She rose 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 169 


and instinctively followed her boy. The sound of pursuit 
came nearer and nearer. ‘They reached the shore, and thére 
beheld three canoes coming swiftly up the river. Animated 
with hope, Louis screamed the watchword of the garrison, and 
was answered by his father’s voice. 

19. The possibility of escape, and the certain approach of 
her husband, infused new life into Marguerite. “ Your father 
cannot see us,” she said, “ as we stand here in the shade of 
the trees ; hide yourself in that thicket, I will plunge into the 
water.” Louis crouched under the bushes, and was com- 
pletely hidden by an overhanging grape-vine, while his mother 
advanced a few steps into the water and stood erect, where she 
could be distinctly seen. 

20. A shout from the canoes apprized her that she was rec- 
ognised, and at the same moment the Indians, who had now 
reached the shore, rent the air with their cries of rage and de- 
fiance. They stood for a moment, as if deliberating what 
next to do; Mecumeh maintained an undaunted and resolved 
air; but with his followers the aspect of armed men, and a 
force thrice their number, had its usual effect. They fled. 

21. He looked after them, cried “shame!” and then, with 
a desperate yell, leaped into the water, and stood beside Mar- 
guerite. The canoes were now within a few yards; he pvt 
his knife to her bosom; “the daughter of Tecumseh,” he 
said, “ should have died by the Spats of our warriours, 
but now by her brother’s hand must she perish ;” and he drew 
back his arm to give vigour to the fatal stroke, when an arrow 
pierced his own breast, and he fell insensible at his sister’s side. 

22. A moment after, Marguerite was in the arms of her 
husband, and Louis, with his bow unstrung, bounded from the 
shore, and was received in his father’s canoe; and the wild 
shores rung with the acclamations of the soldiers, while his 
father’s tears of pride and joy were poured like rain upon his 


cheek. ys 


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170 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LXIX. 
Pursuit of Knowledge.—Lacon. 


1. In the pursuit of knowledge, follow it wherever it is to 
be found ; like fern, it is the produce of all climates, and like 
coin, its circulation is not restricted to any particular class. 
We are ignorant in youth, from idleness, and we continue so 
in manhood, from pride; for pride is less ashamed of being 
ignorant than of being instructed, and she looks too high to 
find that which very often lies beneath her. 

2. Therefore condescend to men of low estate, and be for 
wisdom that which Alcibiades was for power. He that rings 
only one bell, will hear only one sound; and he that lives 
only with one class, will see but one scene of the great drama 
of life. 

3. Mr. Locke was asked how he had contrived to accumu- 
late a mine of knowledge so rich, yet so extensive and so 
deep. He replied, that he attributed what little he knew to 
the not having been ashamed to ask for information ; and to 
the rule he had laid down, of conversing with all descriptions 
of men, on those topicks chiefly that formed their own peculiar 
professions or pursuits. : 

4. I myself have heard a common blacksmith eloquent, 
when welding of iron has been the theme; for what we know 
thoroughly, we can usually express clearly, since ideas will 
supply words, but words will not always supply ideas. ‘There- 
fore when I meet with any that write obscurely, or converse 
confusedly, Iam apt to suspect two things; first, that such 
persons do not understand themselves; and, secondly, that 
they are not worthy of being understood by others. 


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NORTH AMERICAN READER 


LESSON LXX. 


To a Cloud.—BryanT. 


. Beautirut cloud! with folds so soft and fair, 


Swimming in the pure quiet air! 
Thy fleeces bathed in sunlight, while below 
Thy shadow o’er the vale moves slow : 
Where, ’midst their labour, pause the reaper train 
As cool it comes along the grain. 


. Beautiful cloud! I would I were with thee 


In thy calm way o’er land and sea : 
To rest on thy unrolling skirts, and look 
On Earth as onan open book ; 
On streams that tie her realms with silver bands, 
And the long ways that seam her lands ; 
And hear her humming cities, and the sound 
Of the great ocean breaking round. 


. Ay, I would sail upon thy air-borne car 


To blooming regions distant far, 
To where the sun of Andalusia shines 
On his own olive groves and vines, 
Or the soft lights of Italy’s bright sky 
In smiles upon her ruins lie. 
But I would woo the winds to let us rest 
O’er Greece, long fettered and oppressed, 
Whose sons at length have heard the call that comes 
From the old battle fields and tombs, 
And risen, and drawn the sword, and, on the foe 
Have dealt the swift and desperate blow, 
And the Othman power is cloven, and the stroke 
Has touched its chains, and they are broke. 
Ay, we would linger till the sunset there 
Should come, to purple all the air, 
And thou reflect upon the sacred ground, 
The ruddy radiance streaming round. 
H 2 


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172 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


5. Bright meteor! for the summer noontide made ! 

Thy peerless beauty yet shall fade. 

The sun, that fills with light each glistening fold, 
Shall set, and leave thee dark and cold: 

The blast shall rend thy skirts, or thou mayst frown 
In the dark heaven when storms come down 

And weep in rain, till man’s inquiring eye 
Miss thee, for ever, from the sky. 


LESSON LXXI. 


Extract from De Witt Clintons Discourse, delivered at 
Schenectady.— 1823. 


1. Ir is an ordinance of heaven, that man must be em- 
ployed or be unhappy. Mental or corporeal labour is the des- 
tination of his nature; and when he ceases to be active, he 
ceases to be useful, and descends to the level of vegetable 
life. And certainly those pursuits which call into activity his 
intellectual powers, must contribute most to his felicity, his 
dignity, and his usefulness. The vigorous direction of an 
active mind to the accomplishment of good objects, forms its 
most ecstatick delights. | 

2. The honour and glory of a nation consist in the illustri- 
ous achievements of its sons in the cabinet and in the field, 
in the science and learning which compose the knowledge of 
man, in the arts and inventions which administer to his accom- 
modation, and in the virtues which exalt his character. 

3. Scarcely two centuries have elapsed since the settlement 
of these United States, and in that period we have seen a 
Washington, a Henry, a Franklin, a Rittenhouse, and a Fulton; 
the most splendid names in war, in eloquence, in philosophy, 
in astronomy, and in mechanicks, which the world has ever 
witnessed. 

4, The congress of patriots who proclaimed our independ- 
ence in the face of an admiring world, and in the view of 
approving heaven, have descended with three exceptions to the 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 173 


grave : and in this illustrious band were comprised more virtue 
and wisdom, and patriotism and energy, than in any associa- 
tion of ancient or modern times. 

5. I might proceed and pronounce a eulogium on our savans, 
who have illustrated philosophy and the exact sciences ; on our 
literati, who have explored the depth and ascended the heights 
of knowledge; on our poets, who have strung the lyre of 
Apollo; on our painters, who have combined the sublime and 
beautiful in the graphick art; on our statesmen, who have 
taught the ways and means of establishing the greatest happi- 
ness of the greatest numbers; and on our theologians, who 
have vindicated the ways of God to man. 

6. When we consider the small areas in which the insignia 
of human greatness have been displayed, we shall find equal 
cause for astonishment and exultation. Attica was not more 
extensive than some of our counties, and the whole of Greece 
did not exceed this state in dimensions. Rome for a long 
period did not cover so great an extent ; and the Swiss Can- 
tons, the United Netherlands, and England, when compared 
with the illustrious men and the illustrious deeds of which 
they can boast, are of a very limited space. 

7. The United States contains more than a twentieth part 
of the land of this globe, and not six hundred thousand square 
miles less than the whole of Europe. The Deity has placed 
us on a mighty continent: the plastick hand of nature has 
operated on a stupendous scale. Our rivers and lakes ; our 
cataracts and mountains; our soil and climate; bear the im- 
press of greatness, of fertility, of salubrity. In this spacious 
theatre, replete with the sublime and beautiful, let us acta 
correspondent part. 

8. This state, which now has a population of a million and 
a half; is capable of supporting ten millions of souls; and be- 
fore this century closes this maximum will be attained. And 
if in the councils of the Almighty it is decreed, that we shall 
continue to advance in all that can render a people intelligent 
and virtuous, prosperous and happy, with what reverence will 
posterity regard the memory of those who have laid the found- 
ation of such greatness and renown. 


174 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LXXII. 
Instability of Earthly Things. —HeErvey. 


1. THE moon is incessantly varying, either in her aspect 
or her stages. Sometimes she Jooks full upon us, and her 
visage is all lustre. Sometimes she appears in profile, and 
shows us only half her enlightened face. Anon, a radiant 
crescent but just adorns her brow. Soon it dwindles into a 
slender streak: till, at length, all her beauty vanishes, and 
she becomes a beamless orb. Sometimes she rises with the 
descending day, and begins her procession amidst admiring 
multitudes. | 

2. Ere long, she defers her progress till the midnight 
watches, and.steals unobserved upon the sleepimg world. 
Sometimes she just enters the edges of the western horizon, 
and drops us a ceremonious visit. Within-a while, she sets 
out on her nightly tour from the opposite regions of the east ; 
traverses the whole hemisphere, and never offers to withdraw, 
till the more refulgent partner of her sway renders her pres- 
ence unnecessary. In a word, she is, while conversant 
among us, still waxing or waning, and “ never continueth in 
one stay.” 

3. Such is the moon, and such are all sublunary things ex- 
posed to perpetual vicissitudes. How often and how soon 
have the faint echoes of renown slept in silence, or been con- 
verted into the clamours of obloquy! The same lips, almost 
with the same breath, cry, Hosanna and Crucify! Have not 
riches confessed their notorious treachery a thousand and a 
thousand times? Either melting away lke snow in our 
hands, by insensible degrees, or escaping, like a winged prisoner 
from its cage, with a precipitate flight. 

4, Have we not known the bridegroom’s closet an ante- 
chamber to the tomb; and -heard the voice which so lately 
pronounced the sparkling pair husband and wife, proclaim an 
everlasting divorce? and seal the decree, with that solemn 


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NORTH AMERICAN READER, > 175 


asseveration, ‘* Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!” Our friends, 
though the medicine of life; our health, though the balm of 
nature, are a most precarious possession. How soon may 
the first become a corpse in our arms ; and how easily is the 
last destroyed in its vigour ! 

5. You have seen, no doubt, a set of pretty painted birds 
perching on your trees, or sporting in your meadows. You 
were pleased with the lovely visitants, that brought beauty on 
their wings, and melody in their throats. But could you en- 
sure the continuance of this agreeable entertainment? No, 
truly. At the least disturbing noise, at the least terrifying ap- 
pearance, they start from their seats; they mount the skies, 
and are gone in an instant, are gone for ever. 

6. Would you choose to have a happiness which bears date 
with their arrival, and expires at their departure? If you 
could ‘not be content with a portion, enjoyable only through 
such a fortuitous term, not of years, but of moments, O! 
take up with nothing earthly; set your affections on things 
above ; there alone is “ no variableness or shadow of turning.” 


LESSON LXXIII. 


Intellectual and Moral Education of the People, the only means 
of safety to the Government.—W ay LanD. 


1. THe question, then, What can we do to promote the cause 
of liberty throughout the world, resolves itself into another : 
What can we do to ensure the success of that experiment 
which our institutions are making upon the character of man? 

2. In answering it, it is important to remark, that whatever 
we would do for our country, must be done for THE PEOPLE. 
Great results can never be effected in any other way. Spe- 

_Cially is this the case under a republican constitution. 

3. Here the people are not only the real, but also the ac- 
knowledged fountain of all authority. They make the laws, 
and they control the execution of them. They direct the 

‘senate, they overawe the cahinet, and hence it is the moral and 


176 NORTH#AMERICAN READER. 


intellectual character of the people which must give to the 
“very age and body of our institutions their form and pres- 
sure.” | 

4. So long, then, as our people remain virtuous and intelli- 
gent, our government will remain stable. While they clearly 
perceive, and honestly decree justice,our laws will be whole- 
some, and the principles of our constitution will commend 
themselves everywhere to the common sense of man. 

5. But should our people become ignorant and vicious ; 
should their decisions become the dictates of passion and ve- 
nality, rather than of reason and of right, that moment are our 
liberties at an end ; and, glad to escape from the despotism of 
millions, we shall flee for shelter to the despotism of one. 
Then will the world’s last hope be extinguished, and darkness 
brood for ages over the whole human race. 

6. Not less important is moral and intellectual cultivation, 

if we would prepare our country to stand forth the bulwark of 
the liberties of the world. Should the time to try men’s souls 
ever come again, our reliance under God must be, as it was 
before, on the character of our citizens. 
‘ ‘7%. Our soldiers must be men whose bosoms have swollen 
with the conscious dignity of freemen, and who, firmly trust- 
ing in a righteous God, can look unmoved on embattled na- 
tions leagued together for purposes of wrong. 

8. When the means of education everywhere throughout 
our country shall be free as the air we breathe ; when every 
family shall have its Bible, and every individual shall love to 
read it; then, and not till then, shall we exert our proper influ- 
ence on the cause of man; then, and not till then, shall we 
be prepared to stand forth between the oppressor and the op- 
pressed, and say to the proud wave of domination, Thus far 
shalt thou come, and no farther. 

9. It seems, then, evident, thatthe paramount duty of an 
American citizen is to put in requisition every possible means 
for elevating universally the intellectual and moral character of 
our people. 

10. When we speak of intellectual elevation, we would not 
suggest that all our citizens are to become able linguists, or 
profound mathematicians. This, at least for the present, is 


‘ 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. , PET 


not practicable; it certainly is not necessary. The object at 
which we aim will be attained, when every man is familiarly 
acquainted with what are now considered the ordinary branches 
of an English education. 

11. The intellectual stores of one language are then open 
before him ; a language in which he may find al! the knowl- 
edge that he will ever need to form his opinions upon any 
subjects on which it will be his duty to decide. A man who 
cannot read, let us always remember, is a being not contem- 
plated by the genius of our constitution. 

12. Where the right of suffrage is extended to all, he is 
certainly a dangerous member of the community who has not 
qualified himself to exercise it. But on this part of the sub- 
ject I need not enlarge. The proceedings of our national 
and state legislatures already furnish ample proof that our 
people are tremblingly alive to its importance. We do firmly 
believe the time to be not far distant, when there will not be 
found a single.citizen of these United States, who is not enti- 
tled to the appellation of a well-informed man. 

13. But supposing all this to be done, still only a part, and 
by far the least important part of our work will have been ac- 
complished. We have increased the power of the people, but 
we have left it doubtful in what direction that power will be 
exerted. We have made it certain that a publick opinion will 
be formed; but whether that opinion shall be healthful or de- 
structive, is yet to be decided. 

14, We have cut our channels, by which knowledge may be 
conveyed to every individual of our mighty population ; it re- 
mains for us, by means of those very channels, to instil into 
every bosom an unshaken reverence for the principles of right. 

15. Having gone thus far, then, we must go farther; for you 
must be aware that the tenure by which our liberties are held 
can never be secure, unless moral, keep pace with intellectual 
cultivation. This leads us to remark, in the second place, that 
our other and still more imperative duty is to cultivate the 
moral character of our people. 


» 


178 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LXXIY. 
Proper Selection of Objects of Purswt.—ABERCROMBIE. 


1. A careEFuL selection of the subjects to which the mind 
ought to be directed. These are, in some respects, different 
in different persons, according to their situations in life; but 
there are certain objects of attention which are peculiarly 
adapted to each individual, and there are some which are 
equally interesting to all. 

2. In regard to the latter, an appropriate degree of atten- 
tion is the part of every wise man; in regard to the former, a 
proper selection is the foundation of excellence. One indi- 
vidual may waste his powers in that desultory application of 
them which leads to an imperfect acquaintance with a variety 
of subjects; while another allows his life to steal over him in 
listless inactivity, or application to trifling pursuits. 

3. It is equally melancholy to see high powers devoted te 
unworthy objects; such as the contests of party on matters 
involving no important principle, or the subtleties of sophistical 
controversy. Jor rising to eminence in any intellectual pur- 
suit, there is not arule of more essential importance than that 
of doing one thing at a time ; avoiding distracting and des- 
ultory occupations ; and keeping a leading object habitually 
before the mind, as one in which it can at all times find an 
interesting resource when necessary avocations allow the 
thoughts to recur to it. 

4, A subject which is cultivated in this manner, not by 
regular periods of study merely, but as an habitual object of 
thought, rises up and expands before the mind in a manne 
which is altogether astonishing. If along with this habit 
there be cultivated the practice of constantly writing such 
views as arise, we perhaps describe that state of mental disci- 
pline by which talents of a very moderate order may be applied 
in a conspicuous and useful manner to any subject to which 
they are devoted. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 179 


5. Such writing need not be made at first with any great 
attention to method, but merely put aside for future considera- 
tion ; and, in this manner, the different departments of a sub- 
ject will develop and arrange themselves as they advance, ina 
manner equally pleasing and wonderful. 


LESSON LXXYV. 


Passage of the Potomack through the Blue Ridge.— 
JEFFERSON. 


1. Tur passage of the Potomack through the Blue Ridge, 
is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature. You 
stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up 
the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foct of the mountain 
a hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the 
Potomack, seeking a passage also. In the moment of their 
junction, they rush together against the mountain, rend it 
asunder, and pass off to the sea. 

2. The first glance at this scene hurries our senses into the 
opinion, that this earth has been created in time; that the 
mountains were formed first; that the rivers began to flow 
afterward; that, in this place particularly, they have been 
dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed 
an ocean which filled the whole valley ; that, continuing to 
rise, they have at length broken over at this spot, and have 
torn the mountain down from its summit to its base. 

3. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the 
Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disrupture and avul- 
sion from their beds by the most powerful agents of nature, 
corroborate the impression. But the distant finishing which 
Nature has given to the picture, is of a very different char- 
acter. Itis a true contrast to the foreground. It is as placid 
and delightful as that is wild and tremendous. 

4. For, the mountain being cloven asunder, she presents to 
your eye, through the cleft, a small catch of smooth blue 
horizon, at an infinite distance in the plain country, inviting 


\ 


180 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


you, as it were, from the riot and tumult roaring around, to 
pass through the breach, and participate of the calm below. 
Here the eye ultimately composes itself; and that way, too, 
the road happens actually to lead. 

5. You cross'the Potomack above its junction, pass along 
its side through the base of the mountain for three miles, its 
terrible precipices hanging in fragments over you, and within 
about twenty miles reach Fredericktown, and the fine country 
round that. } 

6. This scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantick. Yet 
here, as in the neighbourhood of the Natural Bridge, are peo- 
ple who have passed their lives within half a dozen miles. 
and have never been to survey these monuments of a war be- 
tween rivers and mountains, which must have shaken the 
earth itself to its centre. 


LESSON LXXVI. 
Industry of Demosthenes. 


]. DemostueEnes had a weak voice, a thick way of speak- 
ing, and a very short breath; notwithstanding which, his pe- 
riods were so long, that he was often obliged to stop in the 
midst of them for respiration. This occasioned his being 
hissed by the whole audience. As he withdrew, hanging down 
his head, and in the utmost confusion, Satyrus, one of the most 
excellent actors of those times, who was his friend, met him; . 
and having learned from himself the cause of his being so 
much dejected, he assured him that the evil was not without 
remedy, and that the case was not so desperate as he imagined. 

2. He desired him to repeat some of the verses of Sopho- 
cles or Euripides to him, which he accordingly did. Satyrus 
spoke them after him, and gave them such tone, gesture, and 
spirit, with which he pronounced them, that Demosthenes him- 
self found them to be quite different from what they were in 
his own manner of speaking. He perceived plainly what he 
wanted, and applied himself to the acquiring of it. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 181 


? 

3. His efforts to correct his natural defeet of utterance, and 
to perfect himself in pronunciation, of which his friend had 
made him understand the value, seem almost incredible, and 
prove that an industrious perseverance can surmount all 
things. He stammered to such a degree, that he could not 
pronounce some letters; among others, the Jetter R, with 
which the art he studied begins ; and he was so short-breathed, 
that he could not utter a whole period without stopping. 

4, He overcame these obstacles at length, by putting peb- 
blestones into his mouth; and pronouncing several verses in 
that manner without interruption, and with walking and going 
up steep and difficult places, so that at last no letter made him 
hesitate, and his breath held out through the lengest periods. 
He went also to the seashore; and, while the waves were in 
the most violent agitation, he pronounced harangues, to accus- 
tom himself, by the confused noise of the waters, to the roar 
of the people, and the tumultuous cries of publick assemblies. 

5. Demosthenes took no less care of his action than his 
voice. He had a large looking-glass in his house, which 
served to teach him gesture, and at which he used to declaim, 
before he spoke in publick. To correct a fault which he had 
contracted by an ill habit of shrugging up his shoulders, he 
practised standing upright in a very narrow pulpit, over which 
hung a sword, in such a manner, that if, in the heat of the ac- 
tion, that motion escaped him, the point of the weapon might 
serve at the same time to admonish and correct him. 

6. His application to studies was no less surprising. To 
be the more removed from noise, and less subject to distrac- 
tion, he caused a smalJl room to be made for him under ground, 
in which he shut himself up sometimes for whole months, 
shaving on purpose half his head and face, that he might not 
be ina condition to go abroad. It was there, by the help of a 
small lamp, he composed his admirable orations, which were 
said, by those who envied him, to smell of the oil, to imply 
they were too elaborate. 

7. His pains were well bestowed; for it was by these . 
means that he carried the art of declaiming to the highest de- 
gree of perfection of which it was capable! Whence it is 
plain he well knew its value and importance. When he was 


182 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


‘asked three several times which quality he thought most neces- 
sary in an orator, he answered each time, “ Pronunciation.” 

8. By making the reply three times successively, he insin- 
uated that pronunciation is the only qualification of which 
the want could least be concealed, and which is the most ca- 
pable of concealing other defects; and that alone could give 
considerable weight even to an indifferent orator, when without 
it the most excellent could not hope the least success. As to 
Demosthenes, Cicero tells us, that his success was so great, 
that all Greece came in crowds to Athens to hear him speak ; 
and he adds, that merit so great as his could not but have the 
desired effect. 


LESSON LXXVII. 
On seeing a beautiful Boy at Playna—N. P. Wittis. 


1. Down the green slope he bounded. Raven curls 
From his white shoulders by the winds were swept, 
And the clear colour of his sunny cheek 
Was bright with motion. Through his open lips 
Shone visibly a delicate line of pearl, 
Like a white vein within a rosy shell, 
And his dark eye’s clear brilliance, as it lay 
Beneath his lashes, like a drop of dew 
Hid in the moss, stole out as covertly 
As starlight from the edging of a cloud. 

2. 1 never saw a boy so beautiful. 
His step was like the stooping of a bird, 
And his limbs melted into grace like things < 
Shaped by the wind of summer. He was like 
A painter’s fine conception; such a one 
As he would have of Ganymede, and weep 
Upon his palette that he could not win 
The vision to his easel. 

3. Who could paint 
The young and shadowless spirit? Who could chain 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


The visible gladness of a heart that lives, 
Like a glad fountain, in the eye of light, 
With an unbreathing pencil? Nature’s gift 
Has nothing that is like it. 

Sun and stream, 
And the new leaves of June, and the young lark 
That flees away into the depths of heaven, 
Lost in his own wild musick, and the breath 
Of spring-time, and the summer eve, and noon 
In the cool autumn, are like fingers swept 
Over sweet-toned affections ; but the joy 
That enters to the spirit of a child, 
Is deep as his young heart: his very breath, 
The simple sense of being, is enough 
To ravish him, and like a thrilling touch 
He feels each moment of his life go by. 


. Beautiful, beautiful childhood! with a joy 


That like a robe is palpable, and flung 
Out by your every motion! delicate bud 
Of the immortal flower that will unfold 
And come to its maturity in heaven ! 
I weep your earthly glory. 

"Lis a light 
Lent to the new-born spirit that goes out 
With the first idle wind. It is the leaf + 
Fresh flung upon the river, that will dance 
Upon the wave that stealeth out its life, 
Then sink of its own heaviness. 

The face 

Of the delightful earth will to your eye 
Grow dim; the fragrance of the many flowers 
Be noticed not, and the beguiling voice 
Of nature in her gentleness will be 
To manhood’s senseless ear inaudible. 


I sigh to look upon thy face, young boy! 


183 


184 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LXXVIII. 


The Advantages of a Taste for the Beauties of Nature.—- 
PERCIVAL. 


1. Tuat perception of, and sensibility to beauty, which, 
when cultivated and improved, we term taste, is most general 
and uniform, with respect to those objects which are not liable 
to variation from accident, caprice, or fashion. ‘The verdant 
lawn, the shady grove, the variegated landscape, the boundless 
ocean, and the starry firmament, are contemplated with pleas- 
ure by every beholder. 

2. But the emotions of different spectators, though similar 
in kind, differ widely in degree ; for, to relish with full delight 
the enchanting scenes of nature, the mind must be incor- 
rupted by avarice, sensuality, or ambition ; quick in her sensi- 
bilities, elevated in her sentiments, and devout in her affections. 

3. If this enthusiasm were cherished by every individual, 
in that degree which is consistent with the indispensable duties 
of his station, the felicity of human life would be considerably 
augmented. From this source the refined and vivid pleasures 
of the imagination are almost entirely derived. The elegant 
arts owe their choicest beauties to a taste for the contemplation 
of nature. 

4. Painting and sculpture are express imitations of visible 
objects ; and where would be the charms of poetry, if divested 
of the imagery and embellishments which she borrows from 
rural scenes? Painters, statuaries, and poets, therefore, are 
always ambitious to acknowledge themselves the pupils of 
nature; and, as their skill increases, they grow more and 
more delighted with every view of the animal and vegetable 
world. 

5. The scenes of nature contribute powerfilly to inspire 
that serenity which heightens their beauties, and is necessary 
to our full enjoyment of them. By a secret sympathy the 
soul catches the harmony which she contemplates; and the 
frame within assimilates itself to that without. In this state 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 185 


of sweet composure, we become susceptible of virtuous im- 
pressions from almost every surrounding object. The patient 
ox is viewed with generous complacency ; the guileless sheep 
with pity; and the playful lamb with emotions of tenderness 
and love. 

6. We rejoice with the horse in his liberty and exemption 
from toil, while he ranges at large through enamelled pas- 
tures. We are charmed with the songs of birds, soothed 
with the buzz of insects, and pleased with the sportive emo- 
tions of fishes, because these are expressions of enjoyment ; 
_ and, having felt a common interest in the gratifications of in- 
feriour beings, we shall be no longer indifferent to their suffer- 
ings, or become wantonly instrumental in producing them. 

7. But the taste for natural beauty is subservient to higher 
purposes than those which have been enumerated. ‘The cul- 
tivation of it not only refines and humanizes, but dignifies and 
exalts the affections. It elevates them to the admiration and 
love of that Being, who is the author of all that is fair, sub- 
lime, and good, in the creation. Skepticism and irreligion 
are scarcely compatible with the sensibility of heart which 
arises from a just and lively relish of the wisdom, harmony, 
and order subsisting in the world around us. 

8. Emctions of piety must spring up spontaneously in the 
bosom that is in union with all animated nature. Actuated by 
this beneficial and divine inspiration, man finds a fane in every 
grove ; and glowing with devout fervour, he joins his song to 
the universal chorus, or muses the praises of the Almighty in 
more expressive silence. 


LESSON LXXIX. 
The Courage of a People, their Great Strength. 


Extract from Robert Goodloe Harper's Speech, on the necessity of resist- 
ing the aggressions and encroachments of France, delivered in the House 
of Representatives of the United States, May 29, 1797. 

1. Mr. Spraker,—There cannot be the least doubt, but 
that, when France is at length convinced that we are firmly 


resolved to call forth all our resources, and to exert all our 


186 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


strength to resist her encroachments and aggressions, she will 
soon desist trom them, She need not be told, sir, what these 
resources are; she knows well their greatness and extent ; 
she knows well that this country, if driven into a war, could 
soon become invulnerable to her attacks, and cvuld throw a 
most formidable and preponderating weight into the scale of 
her adversary. 

2. She will not therefore drive us to this extremity, but will 
desist as Soon as she finds us determined. If our means, sir, 
of repelling the attacks of France, were less than they really 
are, they might be rendered all sufficient, by resolution and 
courage. It is in these that the strength of nations consists, 
and not in fleets, nor armies, nor population, nor money: in 
the ‘“ unconquerable will; the courage never to submit or 
yield.” 

3. These are the true sources of national greatness ; and, 
to use the words of a celebrated writer, ‘* where these means 
are not wanting, all others will be found or created.” It was 
by these means that Holland, in the days of her glory, tri- 
umphed over the mighty power of Spain. It was by these 
means that, in later time, the Swiss, a people not half as 
numerous as we are, and possessing few of our advantages, 
honourably maintained their neutrality amidst the shock of sur- 
rounding states, and against the haughty ageressions of 
France herself. 

4. France insisted that the Swiss should surrender their 
privileges as a neutral nation, but, finding them resolved to 
maintain them, gave up the attempt. This was effected by 
that determined courage, which alone can make a nation great 
or respectable: and this effect has invariably been produced 
by the same cause in every age and in every clime. It was 
this that made Rome the mistress of the world, and Athens 
the protectress of Greece. 

5. When was it that Rome attracted most strongly the ad- 
miration of mankind, and impressed the deepest sentiment of 
fear on the hearts of her enemies? It was when seventy 
thousand of her sons lay bleeding at Cannze, and when Han- 
nibal, victorious over three Roman armies and twenty nations, 
was thundering at her gates. It was then that the young and 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 187 


heroick Scipio, having sworn on his sword, in the presence of 
the fathers of the country, not to despair of the Republick, 
marched forth at the head of a people, firmly resolved to con- 
quer or die ; and that resolution ensured them the victory. 

6. When did Athens appear the greatest and the most 
formidable? It was when giving up thew houses and _ pos- 
sessions to the flames of the enemy, and having transferred 
their wives, their children, their aged parents, and the symbols 
of their religion, on board of their fleet, they resolved to con- 
sider themselves as the Republick, and their ships as their 
country. It was then they struck that terrible blow, under 
which the greatness of Persia sunk and expired, 


LESSON LXXxX. 
Studies of Nature.—Munie. 


1. Tue cheapest, the most accessible, and, at the same 
time, the most instructive and delightful, of all studies, is the 
study of Nature. The student of literature must have his 
library, the natural philosopher or the chymist his apparatus, 
and the student of man his annals and records, which are al- 
ways imperfect, and the greater part of his time must be spent 
in establishing their truth or detecting their falsehood. 

2. All these must be out of the living world, as it were ; 
must abstract themselves from the sun, the sky, the earth, dnd 
the sea, and keep aloof from the charms and fascinations of 
that world of wonders, that creation of beauties and _ utilities, 
which is so abundant, so universal, and so fitted for the gratifi- 
cation of the human mind, that the very first time that an infant 
exercises its feet upon the sward, or stretches its arms in the 
open air, it is to chase butterflies or cull wild flowers. And, 
unless where the enchantments of society allure, or the hard- 
ships of life compel, this, the first and fondest attraction, re- 
tains its freshness to the last. 

3. If pleasure, unmixed with forecastings of retributive 
bitterness, is sought; if the body is to be recruited after the 


188 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


exhaustion of disease; if the wounded spirit is to be healed 
after the anguish of privation or the agony of misfortuae ; 
nay, if there be any hope that reason shall resume her power, 
after the pressure on the mind has been more than its strength ; 
the “joy that bringeth no sorrow ;” the medicine for the dis- 
ease ; the balm for the wounded spirit; the asylum for the 
wandering mind ; are found nowhere but in the sunny glades, 
the green canopies, and the life-imparting breezes of nature. 

4. So, also, when the strength has failed, and the common 
occupations of life can no longer be followed, and its com- 
mon amusements can no longer give pleasure; when wealth 
becomes uneasiness, honour a burden, the banquet palls on 
the appetite, and the ear is dull to the sounds of musick, am 
the eye dim to all the panoply of grandeur ; 

5. Place but the sufferer in society upon a green slope 
where the landscape spreads wide and full before him, with its 
clustering woods, its opening glades, its blue uplands, and its 
varied and varying lights and shadows ; with its sparkling cat- 
aracts, its glittering streams, and glassy lakes ; with its flocks, 
its herds, and its wild animals, roaming from pasture to pasture, 
or bounding from cover to cover ; with its flowers of every 
spot; and on every spray, its living inhabitants, from the eagle 
that dashes heavenward, defying the ardours of the sun, to the 
eel that leaves not the ooze at the bottom of the water, save 
to perform its curious migration to the sea ; 

6. When the inspiring breath of the sweet southwest just 
puts the twigs and leaves into life, and the light summer clouds, 
flinging their shadows, now here, now there, make the one 
view a thousand, ere the throbs of the renovated heart have 
counted the half of that number; when, in short, all nature is 
*‘ beauty to the eye, musick to the ear,” essence to the smell, 
and life to the spirit ; 

7. There comes a new lustre on the eye, a young percep- 
tion on all the senses ; the arteries have more elasticity ; the 
whole system, that was withering in art, waxes green-in na- 
ture; and even near the brink of the grave man feels a tri- 
umph oyer death; a consciousness of immortality which no 
skepticism can shake, and no mortal misery cloud. 

8. But this study is as important in fact as it is delightful 


a 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 189 


in feeling. All that the human race can possess, or enjoy, or 
know, and the foundations or the proofs of all that they can 
believe, are contained in the existence, the appearances, and 
the laws (that is, the successions of appearances), of that vast 
and wonderful structure to which we give the name of Nature. 

9. It is at once the building and the book of “the living 
God :” the elder volume as compared with the book of Rey- 
elation, above all price as that is, and mmestimable as are the 
blessings which it confers on man. ‘That sacred volume is, 
as it were, only a special statute, given in the most beneficent 
mercy, but given only to one race, and for one purpose; a 
grand and paramount purpose, I grant, but still only one. 

10. It is “ the law and the testimony” to man, for virtue in 
the present life, for hope in the life to come, and for enjoy- 
ment, for the only secure happiness and bliss, in both. But 
that which is written on the earth and the sea, and of which 
the lines extend farther into the sky than wing can cleave or 
imagination penetrate, is “ the law and the testimony” to more 
races of beings than human arithmetick or even human fancy 
can number. 

11. Those which can be observed with little trouble and no 
artificial aid, amount to many thousands of distinct tribes and 
races, each having appearances and characters by which it is 
distinguished from the others, and exhibiting at one time, even 
in a small space, more individuals than could be counted. 

12. Who, for instance, would undertake to number the 
stalks of wheat in one field, the blades of grass that carpet 


| one meadow, the plants on one heath, the fishes in one shoal, 


| the sea-birds that fly and scream round one rock, or the flies 


which, in one sunny hour after the rain has beaten to the 
earth or cast on the water all their ancestors, wanton over the 


' surface of one pool? 


13. But these extents are but as so many mere points, com- 
pared with the whole surface of the earth; and the time du- 
ring which they can be observed, even though it were extended 
to the whole life of the observer, is not as a moment to a 


_ year, compared with the duration of recorded time. 


190 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LXXXI. 
Colloquial Powers of Dr. Franklin.—Wirt. 


1. Never have I known such a fireside companion. Great 
as he was, both as a statesman and a philosopher, he never 
shone in a light more winning than when he was seen in a do- 
mestick circle. It was once my good fortune to pass two or 
three weeks with him, at the house of a private gentleman, in 
the back part of Pennsylvania; and we were confined to the 
-house during the whole of that time, by the piooninineape con- 
stancy and depth of the snows. 

2. But confinement could never be felt where Franklin was 
aninmate. His cheerfulness and his colloquial powers spread 
around him a perpetual spring. When I speak, however, of 
his colloquial powers, [ do not mean to awaken any notion 
analogous to that which Boswell has given us when he so fre- 
quently mentions the colloquial powers of Dr. Johnson, 

3. The conversation of the latter continually reminds one 
of “the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.” It was, 
indeed, a perpetual contest for victory, or an arbitrary and de- 
spotick exaction of homage to his superiour talents. It was 
strong, acute, prompt, splendid, and vociferous; as loud, 
stormy, and sublime, as those winds which he represents as 
shaking the Hebrides, and rocking the old castles that frowned 
upon the dark rolling sea beneath. 

4. But one gets tired of storms, however sublime they may 
be, and longs for the more orderly current-of nature. Of 
Franklin, no one ever became tired. There was no ambition 
of eloquence, no effort to shine, in any thing which came from 
him. There was nothing which made any demand either upon 
your allegiance or your admiration. 

5. His manner was as unaffected as infancy. It was na- 
ture’s self. He talked like an old patriarch; and his plain- 
ness and simplicity put you at once at your ease, and gave 
you the full and free possession and use of all your faculties, 


y NORTH AMERICAN READER. 191 


6. His thoughts were of a character to shine by their own 
light, without any adventitious aid. They required only a 
medium of vision like his pure and simple style, to exhibit, to 
the highest advantage, their native radiance and beauty. His 
cheerfulness was unremitting. | It seemed to be as much the 
effect of a systematick and salutary exercise of the mind, as 
of its superiour organization. 

7. His wit was of the first order. It did not show itself 
merely in occasional coruscations ; but, without any effort or 
force on his part, it shed a constant stream of the purest light 
over the whole of his discourse. Whether in the company 
of commons or nobles, he was always the same plain man; 
always most perfectly at his ease, with his faculties in full play, 
and the full orbit of his genius for ever clear and unclouded, 

8. And then, the stores of his mind were inexhaustible. 
. He had commenced life with an attention so vigilant, that 
nothing had escaped his observation, and a judgement so solid, 
that every incident was turned to advantage. His youth had 
not been wasted in idleness, nor overcast by intemperance. 
He had been all his life a close and deep reader, as well as 
thinker; and, by the force of his own powers, had wrought up 
the raw materials which he had gathered from books, with such 
exquisite skill and felicity, that he had added a hundred fold 
to their original value, and justly made them his own. 


LESSON LXXXII. 
Self-respect.—RocurstErR Gem. 


1. Tracu a man to think meanly and contemptibly of him- 
self, to cast off all sense of character, and all consciousness 
of a superiour nature, and moral persuasion can no more act 
upon such a man, than if he were dead. A man may be ad- 
dicted to many vices, and yet there may be a hope of reclaim- 
ing him. 

2. But the moment he loses all sense of character, and all 
consciousness of a superiour nature; that is, the moment he 


192 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


begins to look upon himself and his vices as worthy of one 
another, that moment all hope of reclaiming him perishes ; for 
the last ground is surrendered, on which it is possible for his 
remaining good principles to rally and make a stand. 

3. We have often known men who have retained their self- 
respect long after they had lost their regard for principle ;_ but 
never one who retained his regard for principle after he had 
lost his self-respect. Destroy this, and you destroy every 
thing; for a man who does not respect himself, respects 
nothing. 


LESSON LXXXIII. 
Admirable Structure of the Mole.—Patry. 


1. Tue strong, short legs of the mole, the palmated feet, 
armed with sharp nails, the pig-like nose, the teeth, the velvet 
coat, the small external ear, the sagacious smell, the sunk, 
protected eye, all conduce to the utilities or to the safety of 
its underground life. It is a special purpose, specially con- 
sulted throughout. 

2. The form of the feet fixes the character of the animal. 
They are so many shovels: they determine its action to that 
of rooting in the ground ; and every thing about its body agrees 
with this destination. The cylindrical figure of the mole, as 
well as the compactness of its form, arising from the terseness 
of its limbs, proportionally lessens its labour; because, ac- 
cording to its bulk, it thereby requires the least possible quan- 
tity of earth to be removed for its progress. 

3. It has nearly the same structure of the face and jaws as 
a swine, and the same office for them. The nose is sharp, 
slender, tendinous, strong; with a pair of nerves going down 
to the end of it.. The plush covering, which, by the smooth- 
ness, closeness, and polish of the short piles that compose it, 
rejects the adhesion of almost every species of earth, defends 
the animal from cold and wet, and from the impediment which 
it: would experience by the mould sticking to its body. From 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 193 


soils of all kinds the little pioneer comes forth bright and clean. 
Inhabiting dirt, it is of all animals the neatest. 

4. But what I have always most admired in the mole, is its 
eyes. This animal, occasionally visiting the surface, and 
wanting, for its safety and direction, to be informed when it 
does so, or when it approaches it, a perception of light was 
necessary. I do not know that the clearness of sight depends 
at all upon the size of the organ. What is gained by the 
largeness or prominence of the globe of the eye, is width in 
the field of vision. | 

5. Such a capacity would be of no use to an animal which 
was to seek its food in the dark. The mole did not want to 
look about it; nor would a large, advanced eye, have been 
easily defended from the annoyance, to which the life of the 
animal must constantly expose it. 

6. How, indeed, was the mole, working its way under 
ground, to guard its eyes at all? In order to meet this diffi- 
culty, the eyes are made scarcely larger than the head of a 
corking-pin ; and these minute globules are sunk so deeply in 
the scull, and lie so sheltered within the velvet of its covering, 
as that any contraction of what may be called the eyebrows, 
not only closes up the apertures which lead to the eyes, but 
presents a cushion, as it were, to any sharp or protruding sub- 
stance which might push against them. This aperture, even 
in its ordinary state, is like a pinhole in a piece of velvet, 
scarcely pervious to loose particles of earth. 

7. Observe, then, in this structure, that which we call rela- 
tion. There is no natural connexion between ‘a small, sunk 
eye, and a shovel, palmated foot. Palmated feet might have 
been joined with goggle eyes; or small eyes might have been 
joined with feet of any other form. What was it, therefore, 
which brought them together in the mole? That which brought 
together the barrel, the chain, and the fusee in a watch, design ;_ | 
and design, in both cases, inferred from the relation which 
the parts bear to one another in the prosecution of a common 
purpose. 

I 


194 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON LXXXIV. 


Address to the Columbian Convention.—BoLivar. 


1. LroetsLators,—Great and arduous is the task which the 
publick will has confided to you. Save yourselves from the 
_ compromise in which our fellow-citizens have placed you, by 
saving Columbia. Cast your penetrating glances into the 
hearts of your constituents. You will there read the prolonged 
sufferings to which they are a prey; they'sigh for repose. 

2. A firm, powerful, and just government, is the cry of the 
country. Behold her standing on the ruins left by despotism, 
pale with fear, deploring the loss of thousands of heroes who 
have died for her, and from whose blood, sowed in her fields, 
her rights arise. 

3. Yes, legislators, dead and living, sepulchres and ruins, 
call on you for guarantees. And I, who now, seated at the 
hearth of a simple citizen, and mixed with the multitude, re- 
sume my voice and my right; I, who am the last to call for 
the object of society; I, who have consecrated a religious 
worship to the country and to liberty, ought not to remain 
silent at a moment so solemn. 

4, Give us a government under which the laws shall be 
obeyed, the magistrate respected, and the people free ; a gov- 
ernment which shall prevent the transgression of the general 
will and the commands of the people. 

5. Consider, legislators, that energy in the publick force is 
the safeguard of individual weakness ; the menace which de- 
ters the unjust man; and the hope of society. Consider, that 
the corruption of the people arises from the indulgence of the 
tribunals and from the impunity of crime. Observe, that with- 
out energy there is no virtue; and that without virtue the Re- 
publick perishes. Observe, in short, that anarchy destroys 
liberty, and that union preserves order. 

6. Legislators, in the name of Columbia I entreat, that, 
like the Providence whom you represent, you give us, as the 
arbiters of our destinies, for the people, for the army, for the 
judge, and for the magistrate, inéxorable laws. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 295 


LESSON LXXXV. 


Thanatopsis.— BRYANT. 


1. To him who in the love of nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And gentle sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. 

2. When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
Over thy spirit, and sad images 
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; 
Go forth, under the open sky, and list 

To Nature’s teachings, while from all around, 
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air, 
Comes astill voice ; yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 

In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. 

3. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again ; 
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
To mix for ever with the elements, 

To be a brother to the insensible rock 
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
Turns with his share, and treads upon. 

4. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place 

I2 


196 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Shalt thou retire alone; nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. ‘Thou shalt lie down 
With patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, 
The powerful of the earth; the wise, the good, 
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
Allin one mighty sepulchre. 

5. The hills, 
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales, 
Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 

The venerable woods ; rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green; and poured round all, 
Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste ; 

Are but the solemn decorations all 

Of the great tomb of man. 

6.5" The golden sun, 

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 

That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce, 

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 
Save his own dashings, yet, the dead are there. 
And millions in those solitudes, since first 

The flight of years began, have laid them down 
In their last sleep; the dead reign there alone. 

7. So shalt thou rest; and what if thou shalt fall 

Unheeded by the living ; and no friend 

Take note of thy departure? All that breathe 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 

Plod on, and each one as before will chase 

His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave 

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 

And make their bed with thee. 

As the long train 
Of ages glide away the sons of men, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 197 


The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes 
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, 
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 
By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 

9. So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan, that moves 
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 


LESSON LXXXVI. 
The Emigrant’s Abode in Ohto.—F unt. 


1. In making remoter journeys from the town, beside the 
rivulets, and in the little bottoms not yet in cultivation, I dis- 
cerned the smoke rising in the woods, and heard the strokes of 
the axe, the tinkling of bells, and the baying of dogs, and 
saw the newly-arrived emigrant either raising his log cabin, or 
just entered into possession. 

2. It has afforded me more pleasing reflections, a happier 
train of associations, to contemplate these beginnings of so- 
cial toil in the wide wilderness, than, in our more cultivated 
regions, to come in view of the most sumptuous mansion. 
Nothing can be more beautiful than these little bottoms, upon 
which these emigrants deposite, if I may so say, their house- 
hold gods. : 

3. Springs burst forth in the intervals between the high and 
low grounds. The trees and shrubs are of the most beautiful 
kind. The brilliant redbird is seen flitting among the shrubs, 
or perched on a tree, seems welcoming, in her mellow notes, 
the emigrant to his abode. Flocks of paroquets are glittering 


198 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


among the trees, and gray squirrels are skipping from branch 
to branch. 

4. In the midst of these primeval scenes, the patient and 
laborious father fixes his family. In a few weeks they have 
reared a comfortable cabin and other outbuildings. Pass this 
place in two years, and you will see extensive fields of corn 
and wheat, a young and thrifty orchard, fruit-trees of all 
' kinds, the guarantee of present abundant subsistence, and of 
future luxury. 

5. Pass it in ten years, and the log buildings will have dis- 
appeared. The shrubs and forest trees will be gone. The 
Arcadian aspect of humble and retired abundance and com- 
fort will have given place to a brick house, with accompani- 
ments like those that attend the same kind of house in the 
older countries. 

6. By this time, the occupant, who came there, perhaps, 
with a small sum of money, and moderate expectations, from 
humble life and with no more than a common school educa- 
tion, has been made, in succession, member of the assembly, 
justice of the peace, and, finally, county judge. 

7. I admit that the first residence among the trees affords 
the most agreeable picture to my mind; and that there is an 
inexpressible charm in the pastoral simplicity of those years, 
before pride and self-consequence have banished the repose of 
their Eden, and when you witness the first strugglings of so- 
cial toil with the barren luxuriance of nature. 


LESSON LXXXVII. 
Forest Trees.—Irvina. 


1. I Have paused more than once in the wilderness of 
America, to contemplate the traces of some blast of wind, 
which seemed to have rushed down from the clouds, and ripped 
its way through the bosom of the woodlands ; rooting up, 
shivering, and splintering the stoutest trees, and leaving along 
track of desolation. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 199 


2. There is something awful in the vast havock made 
among these gigantick plants ; and, in considering their mag- 
nificent remains, so rudely torn and mangled, hurled down to 
perish prematurely on their native soil, I was conscious of a 
strong movement of sympathy with the woodnymphs, griev- 
ing to be dispossessed of their ancient habitations. 

3. I remember also hearing a traveller of poetical tempera- 
ment, expressing the kind of horrour which he felt in behold- 
ing, on the banks of the Missouri, an oak of prodigious size, 
which had been in a manner overpowered by an enormous 
wild grape-vine. The vine had clasped its huge folds round 
the trunk, and from thence had wound about every branch and 
twig, until the mighty tree had withered in its embrace. It 
seemed like Laocoon struggling ineffectually in the hideous 
coils of the monster Python. It was the lion of trees perish- 
ing in the embraces of a vegetable Boa. 

4. I am ‘fond of listening to the conversation of English 
gentlemen on rural concerns, and of noticing with what taste 
and discrimination, and what strong, unaffected interest, they 
will discuss topicks which, in other countries, are abandoned 
to mere woodmen or rustick cultivators. I have heard a noble 
earl descant on park and forest scenery, with the science and 
feeling of a painter. 

5. He dwelt on the shape and beauty of particular trees on 
his estate with as much pride and technical precision, as though 
he had been discussing the merits of statues in his collection. 
I found that he had gone considerable distances to examine 
trees which were celebrated among rural amateurs; for it 
seems that trees, like horses, have their established points of 
excellence, and that there are some in England which enjoy 
very extensive celebrity from being perfect in their kind. 

6. There is something nobly simple and pure in such a 
taste. It argues, I think, a sweet and generous nature, to 
have this strong relish for the beauties of vegetation, and this 
friendship for the hardy and glorious sons of the forest. 
There is a grandeur of thought connected with this part of 
rural economy. It-is, if I may be allowed the figure, the 
heroick line of husbandry. It is worthy of liberal, and free- 
born, and aspiring men. 


200 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


7. He who plants an oak looks forward to future ages, and 
plants for posterity. Nothing can be less selfish than this. 
He cannot expect to sit in its shade or enjoy its shelter; but 
he exults in the idea that the acorn which he has buried in the 
earth shall grow up into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flour- 
ishing, and increasing, and benefiting mankind, long after he 
shall have ceased to tread his paternal fields. 

8. Indeed, it is the nature of such occupations to lift the 
thought above mere worldliness. As the leaves of trees are 
said to absorb all noxious qualities of the air, and breathe forth 
a purer atmosphere, so it seems to me asif they drew from us 
all sordid and angry passions, and breathed forth peace and 
philanthropy. 

9. There is a serene and settled majesty in woodland 
scenery that enters into the soul, and dilates and elevates it, 
and fills it with noble inclinations. The ancient and hereditary 
groves, too, that imbower this island, are most of them full of 
story. They are haunted by the recollections of the great 
spirits of past ages, who have sought for relaxation among 
them, from the tumult of arms, or the toils of state, or have 
wooed the muse beneath their shade. 

10. It is becoming, then, for the high and generous spirits 
of an ancient nation to cherish these sacred groves that sur- 
round their ancestral mansions, and to perpetuate them to their 
descendants. Brought up, as I have been, in republican habits 
and principles, I can feel nothing of the servile reverence for 
titled rank, merely because it is titled. But I trust I am neither 
churl nor bigot in my creed. _ I do see and feel how hereditary 
distinction, when it falls to the lot of a generous mind, may 
elevate that mind into true nobility. 

11. It is one of the effects of hereditary rank, when it falls 
thus happily, that it multiplies the duties, and, as it were, ex- 
tends the existence of the possessor. He does not feel him- 
self a mere individual link in creation, responsible only for his 
own brief term of being. _He carries back his existence in 
proud recollection, and he extends it forward in honourable 
anticipation. 

12. He lives with his ancestry, and he lives with his pos- 
terity. To both does he consider himself involved in deep 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 201 


responsibilities. As he has received much from those that 
have gone before, so he feels bound to transmit much to those 
who are to come after him. 

13. His domestick undertakings seem to imply a longer 
existence than those of ordinary men. None are so apt to 
build and plant for future centuries, as noble spirited men who 
have received their heritages from foregoing ages. 

14, I can easily imagine, therefore, the fondness and pride 
with which I have noticed English gentlemen, of generous 
temperaments, but high, aristocratick feelings, contemplating 
those magnificent trees, which rise like towers and pyramids 
from the midst of their paternal lands. There is an affinity 
between all natures, animate and inanimate. ‘The oak, in the 
pride and lustihood of its growth, seems to me to take its range 
with the lion and the eagle, and to assimilate, in the grandeur 
of its attributes, to heroick and intellectual man. 

15. With its mighty pillar rising straight and direct towards 
heaven ; bearing up its leafy honours from the impurities of 
earth, and supporting them aloft in free air and glorious sun- 
shine, it is an emblem of what a true nobleman should be; a 
refuge for the weak, a shelter for the oppressed, a defence for 
the defenceless ; warding off from them the peltings of the 
storm, or the scorching rays of arbitrary power. 

16. He who is this, is an ornament and a blessing to his 
native land. He who is otherwise, abuses his eminent advan- 
tages ; abuses the grandeur and prosperity which he has drawn 
from the bosom of his country. Should tempests arise, and 
he be laid prostrate by the storm, who would mourn over his 
fall? Should he be borne down by the oppressive hand of 
power, who would murmur at his fate? ‘ Why cumbereth he 
the ground ?” 


LESSON LXXXVIIL. 
The moral Effects of Intemperance.—BrRcuer. 


1; Tue sufferings of animal nature occasicned by intem- 
perance, my friends, are not to be compared with the moral 
agonies which convulse the soul. It is an immortal being, 

13 


202 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


who sins and suffers; and, as his earthly house dissolves, he 
is approaching the judgement-seat, in anticipation of a misera- 
ble eternity. He feels his captivity, and in anguish of spirit 
clanks his chains and cries for help. 

2. Conscience thunders, remorse goads, and, as the gulf 
opens before him, he recoils, and trembles, and weeps, and 
prays, and resolves, and promises, and reforms, and “ seeks it 
yet again,” again resolves, and weeps, and prays, and “ seeks 
it yet again!” Wretched man! he has placed himself in the 
hands of a giant, who never pities, and never relaxes his iron 
gripe. He may struggle, but he is in chains. He may cry 
for release, but it comes not; and lost! lost! may be inscribed 
upon the doorposts of his dwelling. 

3. In the mean time these paroxysms of his dying moral 
nature decline, and a fearful apathy, the harbinger of spiritual 
death, comes on. His resolution fails, and his mental energy, 
and his vigorous enterprise ; and nervous irritation and depres- 
sion ensue. The social affections lose their fulness and ten- 
derness, and conscience loses its power, and the heart its sen- 
sibility, until all that was once lovely and of good report retires, 
and leaves the wretch abandoned to the appetites of a ruined 
animal. 

4, In this deplorable condition, reputation expires, business 
falters and becomes perplexed, and temptations to drink multi- 
ply, as inclination to do so increases and the power of resist- 
ance declines. And now the vortex roars, and the struggling 
victim buffets the fiery wave with feebler stroke, and warning 
supplication, until despair flashes upon his soul, and, with an 
outcry that pierces the heavens, he ceases to strive, and dis- 
appears. 


LESSON LXXXIX. 
Right of Free Discussion.— WEBSTER. 


1. Important as I deem it to discuss, on all proper occa- 
sions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still 
more important to maintain the right of such discussion, in its 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 203 


full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now 
growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this 
point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the free- 
dom of inquiry by extravagant and unconstitutional pretences, 
the firmer shall be the tone in which I shall assert, and the 
freer the manner in which I shall exercise it. 

2. It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this peo- 
ple to canvass publick measures, and the merits of publick men. 
It is a “homebred right,” a fireside privilege. It hath ever 
been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin in the nation. 
It is not to be drawn into controversy. Itis as undoubted as 
the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth. 

3. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to publick 
life as a duty ; and it is the last duty which those, whose rep- 
resentative I am, shall find me to abandon. Aiming at all 
times to be courteous and temperate in its use, except when 
the right itself shall be questioned, I shall then carry it to its 
extent. I shall place myself on the extreme boundary of my 
right, and bid defiance to any arm that would move me from 
my ground. 

4. This high constitutional privilege I shall defend and ex- 
ercise, within this house and without this house, and in all 
places; in time of war, in time of peace, and at all times. 
Living I shall assert, dying I shall assert it; and should f 
leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessmg of 
God, I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and 
the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional de- 
fence of them. 


LESSON XC. 
On the Waste of Life.—FRAnNKLIN, 


1. Amercus wasa gentleman of good estate; he was bred 
to no business, and. could not contrive how to waste his hours 
agreeably ; he had no relish for any of the proper works of 
life, or any taste for the improvement of the mind; he spent 


204 "NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


generally ten hours of the four and twenty in bed; he dozed 
away two or three more on his couch; and as many were dis- 
solved in good liquor every evening, if he met with company 
of his own humour. Thus he made a shift to wear off ten 
years of his life since the paternal estate fell into his hands. 

2. One evening as he was musing alone, his thoughts hap- 
pened to take a most unusual turn, for they cast a glance back- 
ward, and he began to reflect on his manner of life. He 
began to think what a number of living. beings had been made 
a sacrifice to support his body, and how much corn and 
wine had been mingled with these offerings ; and he set him- 
self to compute what he had devoured since he came to the 
age.of man. 

3. * About a dozen feathered creatures, small and great, 
have, one week with another,” said he, “ given up their lives 
to prolong mine, which, in ten years, amounts to at least six 
thousand. Fifty sheep have been sacrificed in a year, with 
half a hecatomb of black cattle, that I might have the choicest 
parts offered weekly upon my table. 

4. “Thus a thousand beasts, out of the flock and the herd, 
have been slain in ten years’ time to feed me, besides what 
the forest has supplied me with. Many hundreds of fishes 
haye, in all their variety, been robbed of life for my repast, and 
of 0 smaller kind some thousands. 

5. “ A measure of corn would hardly sitffibe me fine flour 
enough for a month’s provision, and this arises to above six 
score bushels ; and many hogsheads of wine and other liquors 
have been swallowed by me; this wretched consumer of meat 
and drink! And what have I done all this time for God and 
man? What a vast profusion of good things upon a useless 
life and a worthless being! 

6. “ There is not the meanest creature among all those which 
Ihave devoured, but hath answered the end of its creation 
better than I. It was made to support human nature, and it 
has done so. Every crab and oyster I have eaten, and every 
grain of corn I have devoured, hath filled up its place in the 
rank of beings with more propriety and honour than I have 
done. ' Oh, shameful waste of life and time !” 

7. In short. he carried on his moral reflections with so just 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 205 


and severe a force of reason, as constrained him to change his 
whole course of life; to break off his follies at once, and to 
apply himself to gain some useful knowledge, when he was 
more than thirty years of age, He lived many following years 
with the character of a worthy man and an excellent Christian ; 
he died with a peaceful conscience, and the tears of his coun- 
try were dropped upon his tomb. 

8. The world, that knew the whole series of his life, were 
amazed at the mighty change. They beheld him as a wonder 
of reformation, while he himself confessed and adored the Di- 
vine power and mercy which had transformed him froma worth- 
less being to a useful man. But this was a single instance, 
and we may almost venture to write miracle upon it. Are 
there not numbers, in this degenerate age, whose lives thus run 
to utter waste, without the least tendency to usefulness ? 


LESSON XCI. 
The Ocean—the Last Day.—Potuok. 


1. Great Ocean! too, that morning, thou the call 
Of restitution heardst, and reverently 
To the last trumpet’s voice, in silence, listened. - 
Great Ocean ! strongest of creation’s sons, 
Unconquerable, unreposed, untired, 
That rolled the wild, profound, eternal base, 
In Nature’s anthem, and made musick, such 
As pleased the ear of God! 
2. Original, 
Unmarred, unfaded work of Deity, 
And unburlesqued by mortal’s puny skill, 
From age to age enduring and unchanged, 
Majestical, inimitable, vast, 
Loud uttering satire, day and night, on each 
Succeeding race, and little pompous work 
Of man! 
3. Unfallen, religious, holy Sea! 


206 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Thou bowedst thy glorious head to none, fearedst none, 
Heardst none, to none didst honour, but to God 
Thy Maker, only worthy to receive 
Thy great obeisance ! 
4. Undiscovered Sea! 
Into thy dark, unknown, mysterious caves, 
And secret haunts, unfathomably deep, 
Beneath all visible retired, none went, 
And came again, to tell the wonders there. 
5. Tremendous Sea! what time thou lifted up 
Thy waves on high, and with thy winds and storms 
Strange pastime took, and shook thy mighty sides 
Indignantly, the pride of navies fell: 
Beyond the arm of help, unheard, unseen, 
Sunk friend and foe, with all their wealth and war ; 
And on thy shores, men of a thousand tribes, 
Polite and barbarous, trembling stood, amazed, 
Confounded, terrified, and thought vast thoughts 
Of ruin, boundlessness, omnipotence, 
Infinitude, eternity ; and thought 
And wondered still, and grasped, and grasped, and grasped 
Again ; beyond her reach, exerting all 
The soul, to take thy great idea in, 
To comprehend incomprehensible ; 
And wondered more, and felt their littleness. 
6. Self-purifying, unpolluted Sea ! 
Lover unchangeable, thy faithful breast 
For ever heaving to the lovely Moon, 
That like a shy and holy virgin, robed 
In saintly white, walked nightly in the heavens, 
And to the everlasting serenade 
Gave gracious audience ; nor was wooed in vain. 
That morning, thou, that slumbered not before, 
Nor slept, great Ocean! laid thy waves to rest 
And hushed thy mighty minstrelsey. 
7. No breath 
Thy deep composure stirred, no fin, no oar ; 
Like beauty newly dead, so calm, so still, 
So lovely; thou, beneath the light that fell 


8. 


9. 


10. 


11. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 207 


From angel-chariots, sentinelled on high, 
Reposed, and listened, and saw thy living change, 
Thy dead arise. 

Charybdis listened, and Scylla 
And savage Euxine, on the Thracian beach, 
Lay motionless: and every battle-ship 
Stood still, and every ship of merchandise, 
And all that sailed, of every name, stood still. 
Even as the ship of war, full-fledged and swift, 
Like some fierce bird of prey, bore on her foe, 
Opposing with as fell intent, the wind 
Fell withered from her wings that idly hung ; 
The stormy bullet, by the cannon thrown 
Uncivilly against the heavenly face 
Of men, half sped, sunk harmlessly, and all 
Her loud, uncircumcised, tempestuous crew, 
How ill prepared to meet their God! were changed, 
Unchangeable ; the pilot at the helm 
Was changed, and the rough captain, while he mouthed 
The huge, enormous oath. 
The fisherman, 
That in his boat, expectant, watched his lines, 
Or mended on the shore his net, and sung, 
Happy in thoughtlessness, some careless air, 
Heard Time depart, and felt the sudden change. 
In solitary deep, far out from land, 
Or steering from the port with many a cheer, 
Or while returning from long voyage, fraught 
With lusty wealth, rejoicing to have escaped 
The dangerous main, and plagues of foreign climes, 
The merchant quaffed his native air, refreshed ; 
And saw his native hills, in the sun’s light, 
Serenely rise ; and thought of meetings glad, 
And many days of ease and honour, spent 
Among his friends ; 

Unwarned man! even then, 

The knell of Time broke on his revery, 
And, in the twinkling of an eye, his hopes, 
All earthly, perished all. As sudden rose, 


208 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


From out their watery beds, the Ocean’s dead, 
Renewed ; and, on the unstirring billows, stood, 
From pole to pole, thick covering all the sea ; 

_ Of every nation blent, and every age. 


LESSON’ XCII. 
Extract from President Jefferson’s Inaugural Address. 


1. Durine the contest of opinion through which we have 
passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions has 
sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers, 
unused to think freely, and to speak and to write what they 
think ; but this being now decided by the voice of the nation, 
announced according to the rules of the constitution, all will, 
of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and 
unite in common efforts for the common good. 

2. All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that, 
though the will of the majority is, in all cases, to prevail, that 
will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority 
possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and 
to violate which would be oppression. Let us then, fellow- 
citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. 

3. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and 
affection, without which liberty, and even life itself, are but 
dreary things; and let us reflect, that, having banished from 
our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so 
long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we coun- 
tenance a political intolerance, as despotick, as wicked, and 
capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. 

4. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world ; 
during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking, 
through blood and slaughter, his long-lost liberty ; it was not 
- wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even 
this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt 
and feared by some, and less by others; and should divide 
opinions, as to measures of safety. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 209 


5. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of 
principle. We have called by different names brethren of the 
same principle. We are all republicans; we are all federal- 
ists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve 
this union, or to change its republican form, let them stand 
undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which errour 
of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to 
combat it. 

6. I know. indeed, that some honest men fear that a re- 
publican government cannot be strong; that this government 
is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the 
full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government 
which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretick and 
visionary fear, that this government, the world’s best hope, 
may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust 
not; I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government 
on earth. 

7. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of 
the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet 
invasions of the publick order as his own personal concern. 
Sometimes -it is said, that man cannot be trusted with the 
government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the 
government of others? or have we found angels, in the form 
of kings, to govern him? Let history answer this question. 

8. Let us, then, with courage and confidence, pursue our 
own federal and republican principles; our attachment to 
union and representative government. Kindly separated, by 
nature and a wide ocean, from the exterminating havock of 
one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the deg- 
radations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with 
room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thou- 
sandth generation ; entertaining a due sense of our equal 
right to the use of our own faculties ; to the acquisitions of 
our own industry ; to honour and confidence from our fellow- 
citizens ; 

9. Resulting not from birth, but from our actions, and their 
sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, 
indeed, and practised in various forms, yet all of them incul- 
eating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of 


210 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, 
which, by all its dispensations, proves that it delights in the 
happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter ; 


_ with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a 


‘ 


happy and prosperous people ? 
10. Still one thing more, fellow-citizens ; a wise and frugal 


government, which shall restrain men from injuring one 
another ; shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own 
pursuits of industry and improvement ; and shall not take from 
the mouth of labour the bread it has earned. This is the sum 
of good government ; and this is necessary to close the circle 
of our felicities. 


LESSON XCIII. 
Magara River and Falls. —F nt. 


1. Ar the point where this river issues from lake Erie, it 
assumes the name of Niagara. It is something more than 
three quarters of a mile in width, and the broad and powerful 
current imbosoms two islands: one of them, Grand Isle, the 
seat of Mr. Noah’s famous Jewish colony, containing eleven 
thousand acres; and the other, Navy Island, opposite the Brit- 
ish village of Chippeway. 

2. Below this island the river again becomes an unbroken 
sheet, a mile in width. For a half a mile below, it seems to 
be waxing in wrath and power. Were this rapid in any other 
place, it would be noted as one of the sublimest features of 
river scenery. Along this rapid, the broad and irresistible mass 
of rolling water is not entirely whitened, for it is too deep to 
become so. But it has something of that curling and angry 
aspect which the sea exhibits, when swept by the first burst of 
a tempest. 

3. The momentum may be conceived, when we are instruct- 
ed that in half a mile the river has a descent of fifty feet. A 
column of water, a mile broad, twenty-five feet deep, and pro- 
pelled onward by the weight of the surplus waters of the whole 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 211 


prodigious basin of the lakes, rolling down this rapid declivity, 
at length pours over the cataract, as if falling to the eternal 
depths of the earth. 

4, Instead of sublimity, the first feeling excited by this stu- 
pendous cataract is amazement. ‘The mind, accustomed only 
to ordinary phenomena and common exhibitions of power, 
feels a revulsion and recoil, from the new train of thought and 
feeling, forced in an instant upon it. ‘There is hardly sufficient 
coolness for distinct impressions ; much less for calculations. 

5. We witness the white and terrifick sheets, (for an island 
on the very verge of the cataract divides the fall) descending 
more than one hundred and fifty feet into the abyss below. We 
feel the earth trembling under our feet. The deafening roar 
fills our ears. 

6. The spray, painted with rainbows, envelops us. We 
imagine the fathomless caverns which such an impetus, con- 
tinued for ages, has worn. Nature arrays herself before us, 
in this spectacle, as an angry, irresistible power, that has broken 
away from the beneficent control of Providence. 

7. We have gazed upon the spectacle and heard the roar, 
until the mind has recovered from its amazement. We be- 
lieve the first obvious thought, in most minds, is a shrinking 
comparison of the littleness and helplessness of man, and the 
insignificance of his pigmy efforts, when measuring strength 
with nature. | 

8. Take it all in all, it is one of the most sublime and aston- 
ishing spectacles seen on our globe. The eye distinctly 
measures the amount of the mass, and we can hardly avoid 
thinking with the peasant, that the waters of the upper world 
must be drained down the cataract. But the stream continues 
to pour down, and this concentred and impressed symbol of 
the power of Omnipotence, proclaims his majesty through the 
forest from age to age. 

9. An earthquake, the eruption of a volcanick mountain, the 
conflagration of a city, are all spectacles in which terrour is the 
first and predominant emotion. ‘The most impressive exertion 
of human power, is seen in the murderous and sickening hor- 
rours of a conflict between two mighty armies. These, too, 
are transient and contingent exhibitions of sublimity. 


. 


212 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


10. But after we have stood an hour at the foot of these’ 
falls, after the eye has been accustomed to look at them without 
blenching, after the ear has been familiarized with the deafen- 
ing and incessant roar, when the mind begins to calculate the 
grandeur of the scale of operations upon which nature acts ; 
then it is, that the entire and mingled feeling of sublimity rushes 
upon it, and this, probably, is the place, on the whole globe, 
where it is felt in its most unmixed simplicity. 


LESSON XCIV. 


Musick of the Ocean.—Watsu’s Nationa Gazerre. 


‘* And the people of this place say, that, at certain seasons, beautiful sounds 
are heard from the ocean.”~—Mavor’s Voyages. 
1. ’ Lone y and wild it rose, 
That strain of solemn musick from the sea, 
As though the bright air trembled to disclose 
An ocean mystery. 
Again a low, sweet tone, 
Fainting in murmurs on the listening day, 
Just bade the excited thought its presence own, 
Then died away. 


2. Once more the gush of sound, 
Struggling and swelling from the heaving plain, 
Thrilled a rich peal triumphantly around, 
And fled again. 
QO, boundless deep! we know 
Thou hast strange wonders in thy gloom concealed, 
Gems, flashing gems, from whose unearthly glow 
Sunlight is sealed. 


BHC And an eternal spring 
Showers her rich colours with unsparing hand, 
Where coral trees their graceful branches fling 
O’er golden sand, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 213 


But tell, O, restless main ! 
Who are the dwellers in thy world beneath, 
That thus the watery realm cannot contain 
The joy they breathe ? 


4, Emblem of glorious might! 

Are thy wild children like thyself arrayed, 

Strong in immortal and unchecked delight, 
Which cannot fade ? 
Or to mankind allied, 

Toiling with wo, and passion’s fiery sting, 

Like their own home, where storms or peace preside, 
As the winds bring ? 


5 Alas, for human thought ! 

How does it flee existence, worn and old, 

To win companionship with beings wrought 
Of finer mould! 
*Tis vain the reckless waves 

Join with loud revel the dim ages flown, 

But keep each secret of their hidden caves 
Dark and unknown. 


LESSON XCV. 
_ Discontent, the common Lot of all Mankind.—Rame.er. 


1. Sucn is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are 
always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by 
neglect, and possession by disgust. Few moments are more 
pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures 
for a new undertaking. From the first hint that wakens the 
fancy, to the hour of actual execution; all is improvement and 
progress, triumph and felicity. 

2. Every hour brings additions to the original scheme, sug- 
gests some new expedient to secure success, or discovers con- 
sequential advantages not hitherto foreseen. While prepara- 


214 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


tions are made and materials accumulated, day glides after 
day through Elysian prospects, and the heart dances to the 
song of hope. 

3. Such is the pleasure of projecting, that many content 
themselves with a succession of visionary schemes, and wear 
out their allotted time in the calm amusement of contriving 
what they never attempt or hope to execute. 

4, Others, not able to feast their imagination with pure ideas, 
advance somewhat nearer to the grossness of action, with great 
diligence collect whatever is requisite to their design, and, after 
a thousand researches and consultations, are snatched away by 
death, as they stand waiting for a proper opportunity to begin. 

5. If there were no other end of life than to find some 
adequate solace for every day, I know not whether any condi- 
tion could be preferred to that of the man who involves him- 
self in his own thoughts, and never suffers experience to show 
him the vanity of speculation; for no sooner are notions re- 
duced to practice, than tranquillity and confidence forsake the 
breast; every day brings its task, and often without bringing 
abilities to perform it: difficulties embarrass, uncertainty per- 
plexes, opposition retards, censure exasperates, or neglect de- 
presses. 

6. We proceed, because we have begun; we complete our 
design, that the labour already spent may not be vain: but as 
expectation gradually dies away, the gay smile of alacrity dis- 
appears, we are necessitated to implore severer powers, and 
trust the event to patience and constancy. 

7. When once our labour has begun, the comfort that ena- 
bles us to endure it is the prospect of its end; for though in 
every long work there are some joyous intervals of self-ap-— 
plause, when the attention is recreated by unexpected facility, 
and the imagination soothed by incidental excellences not com- 
prised in the first plan, yet the toil with which performance 
struggles after idea, is so irksome and disgusting, and so fre- 
quent is the necessity of resting below that perfection which 
we imagined within our reach, that seldom any man obtains 
more from his endeavours than a painful conviction of his de- 
fects, and a continual resuscitation of desires which he feels 
himself unable to gratify. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 215 


8. So certainly are weariness and vexation the concomitant 
of our undertakings, that every man, in whatever he is en- 
gaged, consoles himself with the hope of change. He that 
has made his way by assiduity and vigilance to publick employ- 
ment, talks among his friends of nothing but the delight of re- 
tirement: he whom the necessity of solitary application se- 
cludes from the world, listens with a beating heart to its dis- 
tant noises, longs to mingle with living beings, and resolves, 
when he can regulate his hours by his own choice, to take his 
fill of merriment and diversions, or to display his abilities on 
the universal theatre, and enjoy the pleasures of distinction 
and applause. 

9, Every desire, however innocent or natural, grows dan- 
gerous, as by long indulgence it becomes ascendant in the 
mind. When we have been much accustomed to consider any 
thing as capable of giving happiness, it is not easy to restrain 
our ardour, or to forbear some precipitation in our advances 
and irregularity in our pursuits. 

10. He that has long cultivated the tree, watched the swel- 
ling bud and opening blossom, and pleased himself with com- 
puting how much every sun and shower added to its growth, 
scarcely stays till the fruit has obtained its maturity, but de- 
feats his own cares by eagerness to reward them. When we 
have diligently laboured for any purpose, we are willing to be- 
lieve that we have attained it; and, because we have already 
done much, too suddenly conclude that no more is to be done. 

11. All attraction is increased by the approach of the at- 
tracting body. We never find ourselves so desirous to finish, 
as in the latter part of our work ; or so impatient of delay, as 
‘when we know that delay cannot be long. Part of this un- 
seasonable importunity of discontent may be justly imputed to | 
languor and weariness, which must always oppress us more as 
our toil has been longer continued; but the greater part usu- 
ally proceeds from frequent contemplation of that ease which 
we now consider as near and certain, and which, when it has 
once flattered our hopes, we cannot suffer to be longer withheld. 


216 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON XCVI. 
To one Bereft.—MELLEN. 


1. Tur heart that has not known the hour 

When Grief could bid it bow, 

Or seen that looks and words have power 
To wring the brightest brow, 

T were vain to torture with a song 
So sorrowful as mine ; 

Leave such to pant amidst the throng 
That crowd its gilded shrine. 


2. But ye that suffer ; who have felt 

The destiny of earth, 

That Death, with shadowy hand hath dealt 
Rebuke amidst your mirth ; 

To you this tribute of a word, 
When other sounds have fled, 

Will come like loved tones, faintly heard ; 
The Memory of the Dead. 


LESSON XCVII. 
Biographical Sketch of Major Andre. 


1. Joun ANprRRF, aiddecamp to Sir Henry Clinton, and 
adjutant-general of the British army in America during the 
revolution, was born in England, in 1741. He was, in early 
life, a merchant’s clerk, but obtained a commission in the army 
at the age of seventeen. Possessing an active and enter- 
prising disposition, and the most amiable and accomplished 
manners, he soon conciliated the esteem and friendship of his 
superiour officers, and rose to the rank of major. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 217 


2. After Arnold had intimated to the British,in 1780, his 
intention of delivering up West Point to them, Major Andre 
was elected as the person to whom the maturing of Arnold’s 
treason and the arrangement for its execution, should be com- 
mitted. A correspondence was for some time carried on be- 
tween them, under a mercantile disguise, and the feigned 
names of Gustavus and Anderson ; and at length, to facilitate 
their communications, the Vulture sloop of war moved up the 
North river, and took a station convenient for the purpose, 
but not so near as to excite suspicion. 

3. An interview was agreed on, and, in the night of Sep- 
tember 21, 1'780, he was taken in a boat, which was despatched 
for the purpose, and carried to the beach without the posts of 
both armies, under a pass for John Anderson. He. met 
General Arnold at the house of a Mr. Smith. While the 
conference was yet unfinished, daylight approached ; and, to 
avoid the danger of discovery, it was proposed that he should 
remain concealed till the succeeding night. 

4. He desired that he might not be carried within the 
‘American posts ; but the promise, made to him by Arnold, to 
respect this objection, was not observed. He was carried 
within them contrary to his wishes and against his knowledge. 
He continued with Arnold the succeeding day, and when, on 
the following night, he proposed to return to the Vulture, the 
boatmen refused to carry him, because she had during the day 
shifted her station, in consequence of a gun having been 
moved to the shore and brought to bear upon her. 

5. This embarrassing circumstance reduced him to the ne- 
cessity of endeavouring to reach New York by land. Yield- 
ing with reluctance to the urgent representations of Arnold, he 
laid aside his regimentals, which he had hitherto worn under 
his surtout, and put ona plain suit of clothes, and receiving a 
pass from the American general, authorizing him, under the 
feigned name of John Anderson, to proceed on the publick 
service to the White Plains, or lower, if he thought proper, he 
set out on his return. 

6. He had passed all the guards and posts on the road with- 
out suspicion, and was proceeding to New York in perfect 
security, when, on the twenty-third of September, one of the 


218 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


three militia men who were employed with others in scouting 
parties between the lines of the two armies, springing suddenly 
from his covert in the road, seized the reins of his bridle and 
stopped his horse. 

7. Instead of producing his pass, Andre, with a want of 
self-possession which can be attributed only to a kind of provi- 
dence, asked the man hastily where he belonged ; and being 
answered, “to below,” replied immediately, “and so do I.” 
He then declared himself to be a British officer, on urgent 
business, and begged that he might not be detained. The 
other two militia men coming up at this moment, he discovered 
his mistake ; but it was too late to repair it. 

8. He offered a purse of gold and a valuable watch, to 
which he added the most tempting promises of ample reward 
and permanent provision from the government, if they would 
permit him to escape; but his offers were rejected without 
hesitation. The names of the militia men who apprehended 
Andre, were John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van- 
wert, who, immediately after searching, carried him before they 
commander, Colonel Jamieson. 

9. On the 29th of September, 1780, General Washington 
appointed a board of fourteen general officers, part of whom 
were General Green, the Marquis de Ja Fayette, and Baron de 
Steubca, with the assistance of the judge advocate, John 
Lawrence. After the most mature deliberation, they pro- 
nounced Major Andre a spy from the enemy, and that, agree- 
ably to the laws of nations, he ought to suffer death. 

10. When his sentence was announced to him, he remarked, 
that since it was his lot to die, as there was a choice in the 
mode, which would make a material difference in his feelings, 
he would be happy, if it were possible, to be indulged with a 
professional death; but the indulgence of being shot rather 
than hung was not granted, because it was considered contrary 
to the custom of war. 

11. When he was led out to the place of execution, he 
bowed familiarly to all those with whom he had been ac- 
quainted during his confinement; a smile of complacency ex- 
pressed the serene fortitude of his mind. Upon seeing the 
preparations at the spot, he asked, with some emotion, “ must 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. ; 219 


I die in this manner?” He was told it was unavoidable. “TI 
am reconciled to my fate,’ said he, “ but not to the mode.” 
Soon after, however, recollecting himself, he added, “ It will 
be but a momentary pang ;” and, springing upon the cart, per- 
formed the last office to himself, with a composure that excited 
the admiration and melted the hearts of all the spectators. 

* 12. Being told that the fatal moment was at hand, and 
asked if he had any thing to say, he answered, ‘* Nothing but 
to request that you will witness to the world that I die like a 
brave man.” 


LESSON XCVIII. 


The Chinese Prisoner.—PERCIVAL. 


J], A cERTAIN emperour of China, on his accession to the 
throne of his ancestors, commanded a general release of all 
those who were confined in prison for debt. Among that num- 
‘ber was an old man who had fallen an early victim to adver- 
sity, and whose days of imprisonment, reckoned by the notches 
which he had cut on the door of his gloomy cell, expressed the 
annual circuit of more than fifty suns. 

2. With trembling limbs and faltering steps, he departed 
from his mansion of sorrow: his eyes were dazzled with the 
splendour of the light; and the face of nature presented to 
his view a perfect paradise. The jail in which he had been 
imprisoned stood at some distance from Pekin, and to that 
city he directed his course, impatient to enjoy the caresses of 
his wife, his children, and his friends. 

3. Having with difficulty found his way to the street in which 
his decent mansion had formerly stood, his heart became more 
and more elated at every step he advanced. With joy he pro- 
ceeded, looking eagerly around; but he observed few of the 
objects with which he had been formerly conversant. A mag- 
nificent edifice was erected on the site of the house which he 
had inhabited ; the dwellings of his neighbours had assumed a 
new form; and he beheld not a single face of which he had 
the least remembrance. ! 


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220 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


4. Anaged beggar, who with trembling knees stood at the 
gate of a portico, from which he had been thrust by the inso- 
lent domestick who guarded it, struck his attention. He stop- 
ped, therefore, to give him a small pittance out of the bounty 
with which he had been supplied by the emperour, and re- 
ceived, in return, the sad tidings, that his wife had fallen a lin- 
gering sacrifice to penury and sorrow ;. that his children were 
gone to seek their fortunes in distant or unknown climes ; and 
that the grave contained his nearest and most valuable friends. 

5. Overwhelmed with anguish, he hastened to the palace 
of his sovereign, into whose presence his hoary locks and 
mournful visage soon obtained admission ; and casting him- 
self at the feet of the emperour, “ Great Prince,” he cried, 
**send me back to that prison from which mistaken mercy has 
delivered me! I have survived my family and friends, and 
even in the midst of this populous city, I find myself in a 
dreary solitude. The cell of my dungeon protected me from 
the gazers at my wretchedness ; and while secluded from so- 
ciety, I was the less sensible of the loss of its enjoyments. I 
am now tortured with the view of pleasure in which I cannot 
participate ; and die with thirst, though streams of delight sur 
round me.”’ 


LESSON XCIX. 


The Commemoration of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 


Extract from a Discourse delivered at Plymouth, Mass., Dec. 22, 1820, in 
commemoration of the first settlement of New England.—By Daniel 
Webster. 

1. Let us rejoice, my friends, that we behold this day. 
Let us be thankful that we have lived to see the bright and 
happy breaking of the auspicious morn, which commences the 
third century of the history of New England. Auspicious 
indeed ; bringing a happiness beyond the common allotment 
of Providence to men; full of present joy, and gilding with 
bright beams the prospect of futurity, is the dawn, that awakens 
us to the commemoration of the landing of the Pilgrims. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 221 


2. Living at an epoch which naturally marks the progress 
of the history of our native land, we have come hither to cele- 
brate the great event with which that history commenced. For 
ever honoured be this, the place of our father’s refuge! For 
ever remembered the day which saw them, weary and dis- 
tressed, broken in every thing but spirit, poor in all but faith 
and courage, at last secure from the dangers of wintry seas, and 
impressing this shore with the first footsteps of civilized man. 

3. We have come to this rock to record here our homage 
for our Pilgrim Fathers ; our sympathy in their sufferings ; 
our gratitude for their labours ; our admiration of their virtues ; 
our veneration for their piety; and our attachment to those 
principles of civil and religious liberty, which they encountered 
the dangers of the ocean, the storms of heaven, the violence 
of savages, disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy and to establish. 

4. Great actions and striking occurrences, having excited a 
temporary admiration, often pass away and are forgotten, be- 
cause they leave no lasting results, affecting the prosperity and 
happiness of communities. Such is frequently the fortune of 
the most brilliant military achievements. Of the ten thousand 
battles which have been fought ; of all the fields fertilized with 
carnage ; of the banners which have been bathed in blood ; 
of the warriours who have hoped that they had risen from the 
field of conquest to a glory as bright and as durable as the 
stars, how few that continue long to interest mankind. 

5. The victory of yesterday is reversed by the defeat of 
to-day; the star of military glory, rising like a meteor, like a 
meteor has fallen ; disgrace and disaster hang on the heels of 
conquest and renown; victor and vanquished presently pass 
away to oblivion; and the world goes on in its course, with 
the loss only of so many lives and so much treasure. 


222 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON C. 
Reception of Columbus on his return to Spain.—Irvine. 


1. Tue fame of his discovery had resounded throughout 
the nation, and as his route lay through several of the finest 
and most populous provinces of Spain, his journey appeared 
like the progress of a sovereign. Wherever he passed, the 
surrounding country poured forth its inhabitants, who lined the 
road and thronged the villages. In the large towns, the streets, 
windows, and balconies, were filled with eager spectators, who 
rent the air with acclamations. 

2. His journey was continually impeded by the multitude 
pressing to gain a sight of him, and of the Indians, who were 
regarded with as much admiration as if they had been natives 
of another planet. It was impossible to satisfy the craving 
curiosity which assailed himself and his attendants, at every 
stage, with innumerable questions : popular rumour, as usual, _ 
had exaggerated the truth, and had filled the newly-found 
country with all kinds of wonders. 

3. It was about the middle of April that Columbus ar- 
rived at Barcelona, where every preparation had been made to 
give him a solemn and magnificent reception. ‘The beauty 
and serenity of the weather, in that genial season and favoured 
climate, contributed to give splendour to this memorable cere- 
mony. As he drew near the place, many of the more youth- 
ful courtiers, and hidalgoes of gallant bearmg, together with 
a vast concourse of the populace, came forth to meet and 
welcome him. 

4. His entrance into this noble city has been compared: to 
one of those triumphs which the Romans were accustomed 
to decree to conquerors. First were paraded the Indians, 
painted according to their savage fashion, and decorated with 
tropical feathers, and with their national ornaments of gold ; 
after these were borne various kinds of live parrots, together 
with stuffed birds and animals of unknown species, and rare 


& 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 223 


plants, supposed to be of precious qualities: while great care 
was taken to make a conspicuous display of Indian coronets, 
bracelets, and other decorations of gold, which might give an 
idea of the wealth of the newly-discovered regions. After 
these followed Columbus, on horseback, surrounded by a brill- 
lant cavalcade of Spanish chivalry. 

5. The streets were almost impassable from the countless 
multitude ; the windows and balconies were crowded with the 
fair; the very roofs were covered with spectators. It seemed 
as if the publick eye could not be sated with gazing on these 
trophies of an unknown world, or on the remarkable man by — 
whom it had been discovered. 

6. There was a sublimity in this event, that mingled a 
solemn feeling with the publick joy. It was looked upon asa 
vast and signal dispensation of Providence, in reward for the 
piety of the monarchs ; and the majestick and venerable ap- 
pearance of the discoverer, so different from the youth and 
buoyancy that are generally expected from roving enterprise, 
seemed in harmony with the grandeur and dignity of his 
achievement. 

7. To receive him with suitable pomp and distinction, the 
sovereigns had ordered their throne to be placed in publick, 
under a rich canopy of brocade of gold, in a vast and splendid 
saloon. Here the king and queen awaited his arrival, seated 
in state with the prince Juan beside them, and attended by the 
dignitaries of their court, and the principal nobility of Castile, 
Valentia, Catalonia, and Arragon, all impatient to behold the 
man who had conferred so incalculable a benefit upon the nation. 

8. At length Columbus entered the hall, surrounded by a 
brilliant crowd of cavaliers, among whom, says Las Casas, he 
was conspicuous for his stately and commanding person, which, 
with his countenance rendered venerable by his gray hairs, 
gave him the august appearance of a senator of Rome. A 
modest smile lighted up his features, showing that he enjoyed 
the state and glory in which he came ; and certainly nothing 
could be more deeply moving, to a mind inflamed by noble 


.ambition, and conscious of haan greatly deserved, than were 


these testimonials of the admiration and gratitude of a nation, 
or rather of a world. 


224 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


9. As Columbus approached, the sovereigns rose, as if re- 
ceiving a person of the highest rank. Bending his knees, he 
requested to kiss their hands; but there was some hesitation 
on the part of their majesties to permit this act of vassalage. 
Raising him in the most gracious manner, they ordered him to 
seat himself in their presence ; a rare honour in this proud and 
punctilious court. 

10. At the request of their majesties, Columbus now gave 
an account of the most striking events of his voyage, and a 
description of the islands which he had discovered. He dis- 
played the specimens he had brought of unknown birds and 
other animals; of rare plants, of medicinal and aromatick 
virtue ; of native gold, in dust, in crude masses, or laboured 
into barbarick ornaments ; and, above all, the natives of these 
countries, who were objects of intense and inexhaustible inter- 
est ; since there is nothing to man so curious as the varieties 
of his own species. All these he pronounced mere harbingers 
of greater discoveries he had yet to make, which would add 
realms of incalculable wealth to the dominions of their majes- 
ties, and whole nations of proselytes to the true faith. 

11. The words of Columbus were listened to with profound 
emotion by the sovereigns. When he had finished, they sunk 
on their knees, and, raising their clasped hands to heaven, their 
eyes filled with tears of joy and gratitude, they poured forth 
thanks and praises to God for so great a Providence; all 
present followed their example ; a deep and solemn enthusiasm 
pervaded that splendid assembly, and prevented all common 
acclamations of triumph. 

12. The anthem of Te Deum laudamus, chanted by the 
choir of the royal chapel, with the melodious accompaniments 
of the instruments, rose up from the midst, in a full body of 
sacred harmony, bearing up, as it were, the feelings and thoughts 
of the auditors to heaven, “so that,” says the venerable Las 
Casas, “it seemed as if in that hour they communicated with 
celestial delights.” Such was the solemn and pious manner 
in which the brilliant court of Spain celebrated this sublime 
event: offering up a grateful tribute of melody and praise, 
and giving glory to God for the discovery of another world. 

13. When Columbus retired from the royal presence, he 


was attended to his residence by all the court, and followed by 
For many days he was the object of 
universal curiosity, and wherever he appeared, he was sur- 


the shouting populace. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


rounded by an admiring multitude. 


p—_ 


LESSON CI. 


The power of Musick, from the “ Airs of Palestine.”— 


PIERPONT. 


. Summer’s dun cloud, that, slowly rising, holds 


The sweeping tempest in its rising folds, 

Though o’er the ridges of its thundering breast, 
The king of Terrours lifts his lightning crest ; 
Pleased we beinold, when those dark folds we find, 
Fringed with the golden light that glows behind. 


. So, when one language bound the human race, 


On Shinah’s plain, round Babel’s mighty base, 
Gloomily rose the minister of wrath ; 

Dark was his frown, destructive was his path ; 
That tower was blasted by the touch of Heaven ; 
That bond was burst ; that race asunder driven : 
Yet, round the Avenger’s brow, that frowned above, 


Played Mercy’s beams ; the lambent light of Love. 
. All was not lost, though busy Discord flung 


Repulsive accents from each jarring tongue ; 

All was not lost; for love one tie had twined, 
And Mercy dropped it, to connect mankind ; 

One tie, that winds, with soft and sweet control, 
Its silken fibres round the yielding soul ; 

Binds man to man, sooths Passion’s wildest strife, 
And through the n:azy labyrinths of life, 

Supplies a faithful clew, tc lead the lone 

And weary wanderer to his Father’s throne. 


. That tie is Musick. How supreme her sway 


How lovely is the Power that all obey ! 
Dumb matter trembles at her thrilling shock ; 
Her voice is echoed by the desert rock ; 

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226 NORTH AMERICAN READER. | 


For her, the asp withholds the sting of death, 
And bares his fangs, but to inhale her breath ; 
The lordly lion leaves his lonely lair, 
And, crouching, listens when she treads the air ; 
And man, by wilder impulse driven to ill, 
Is tamed, and led by this Enchantress still. 
5. Who ne’er has felt her hand assuasive steal 
Along his heart, that heart will never feel. 
Tis hers to chain the passions, sooth the soul, 
To snatch the dagger, and to dash the bowl 
From Murder’s hand: to smooth the couch of Care, 
Extract the thorns, and scatter roses there ; 
Of Pain’s hot brow, to still the bounding throb, 
Despair’s long sigh, and Grief’s convulsive sob. 
6. How vast her empire! ‘Turn through earth, through air, 
Your aching eye, you find her subjects there ; 
Nor is the throne of Heaven above her spell, 
Nor yet beneath it is the host of hell. 
To her religion owes her holiest flame : 
Her eye looks heavenward, for from heaven she came. 
7. And when Religion’s mild and genial ray, 
Around the frozen heart begins to play, 
Musick’s soft breath falls on the quivering light, 
Ihe fire is kindled and the flame is bright ; 
And that cold mass, by either power assailed, 
Is warmed, made liquid, and to Heaven exhaled. 


LESSON CIL 


Supply of Water in Constantinople —Sxetcues oF Turkey, 
BY Dr Dexay. 


1. Every stranger is struck with the numerous contrivances 
around Constantinople for supplying it with pure and whole- 
some water. Under the Greek emperours, Constantinople 
was supplied with water by the means of aqueducts, and large 
reservoirs were established in different parts of the city. These 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 227 


latter, however, have now gone into disuse, as expensive and 
inadequate for the purposes intended. 

2. Under the present system, all the waterworks about 
Constantinople are under the management of an officer, termed 
the soo naziri, or inspector of waters. It is his business to 

keep them in good repair, and he is responsible for any acci- 

dents which may obstruct or diminish the supply. As no time 
is to be Jost to repair injuries, this officer is clothed with great 
power, and he compels every one to assist in restoring the line 
of communication. 

3. This resembles the corvée of old France in some meas- 
ure, but is much more oppressive ; for the soo naziri fines most 
rigorously all who dwell in the vicinity of any breach or injury, 
unless they give immediate information of the disaster. So 
important are these water-courses considered, that the suJtans 
have always been in the habit of making annually a formal 
visit of inspection, which is accompanied with much cere- 
mony, and ordering such improvements and alterations as are 
deemed necessary. 

4. It is impossible to travel anywhere in the vicinity of 

* Constantinople without being struck with the great pains taken 
by the Turks to treasure up every rill, or the minutest trickle 
from the face of the rocks. These are carefully collected in 
marble or brick reservoirs, and the surplus is conveyed by pipes 
to the mainstream. In passing through sequestered dells, the 
traveller frequently comes suddenly upon one of these sculp- 
tured marble fountains, which adds just enough of ornament 
to embellish the rural scene. 

5. They are frequently decorated with inscriptions, setting 
forth the greatness and goodness of Providence, and inviting 
the weary traveller to make due acknowledgments for the 
same. Unlike our civilized ostentation, the name of the ke- 
nevolent constructer never appears on these sculptured stones. 
The quaint Turkish adage, which serves as a rule of conduct, 
is well exemplified in this, as well as in many other instances ; 
* Do good and throw it into the sea; if the fishes don’t know 
it, God will.” 

6. Among the hills at various distances, from fifteen to 
twenty miles from the city, are constructed large artificial res- 


228 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


ervoirs. These are termed bendts, a word of Persian origin, 
and are built in the following manner: Advantage is taken of 
a natural situation, such as a narrow valley or gorge between 
two mountains, and a strong and substantial work of masonry 
is carried across, sufficiently high to give the water its required 
level. Four of these bendts were visited and examined, but 
there are several others which we did not see. <A description 
of one of the largest will give an idea of the manner in which 
they are constructed. 

7. A solid wall of marble masonry, eighty feet wide, and 
supported by two large buttresses, rises to the height of a hun- 
dred and thirty feet from the bottom of the valley. It is four. 
hundred feet long, and the top is covered with large marble 
slabs of dazzling brilliancy. On the side next the reservoir, 
a substantial marble balustrade, three feet in height, gives a 
finish to this Cyclopean undertaking. 

8. A tall marble tablet indicates the date of its erection, or 
more probably of its repair or reconstruction. From the date, 
1211, it appears to have been built about forty-six years ago. 
It is called the Validay Bendt, and is said to have been built by 
the mother of the reigning sultan. It is furnished with a waste 
gate, and, at a short distance below, the water from the reser- 
voir is carried across a ravine by a short aqueduct. 

9. About two miles from this is another bendt, erected in 
1163, which corresponds to the year 1749. This is also a 
magnificent work, although inferiour in size to the preceding. 
They both supply the aqueduct of Batchikeui, which, as has 
already been stated, furnishes the suburbs of Pera and Galata 
with water. Beyond Belgrade are other reservoirs. These 
supply Constantinople proper with water. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 229. 


- LESSON CIII. 


The Obligations of America to Lafayette. 


Extract from Mr. Hayne’s Speech in the Senate of the United States, upon 
, the Bill making provision for Gen. Lafayette, Dec., 1824. 

1. I pip hope, Mr. President, that this bill would meet 
with no opposition. I had hoped that the world would see, 
that against a proposition for showing our gratitude, as a na- 
tion, in something more than mere words to General Lafayette, 
not a voice would be raised. But, sir, I am disappointed : 
and it is therefore the irksome task of this committee to go 
into detail, and to show how much we are absolutely indebted 
to this great man. 

2. It appears from some documents, sir, in possession of 
the committee, that the general, during six years of our revo- 
lutionary war, sacrificed one hundred and forty thousand dollars 
' of his private fortune, in the service of this country. And 
how, sir, was this sacrifice made? Under what circumstances? 
Was he one of our own citizens? one of those whose lives 
and fortunes were necessarily exposed during the vicissitudes 
of a contest for the right of self-government ? 

3. No, sir, no such thing. He tore himself away from his 
country and his home, to fight the battles of freedom in a 
foreign land, and to make common cause with a people to 
whom he owed no duty. Nor was he satisfied with the devo- 
tion of his personal services. 

4. It is a matter of record on the pages of your history, 
that he armed a regiment for you; that he sent a vessel laden 
with arms and munitions of war for you; that he put shoes on 
the feet of vour barefoot and suffering soldiery. For all 
these services he asked no recompense; he received none. 
He spent his fortune for you; he shed his blood for you; and 
without acquiring any thing but a claim upon your gratitude, 
he empoverished himself. 

5, And now, sir, what would be thought of us in Europe, 


230 ’ NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


if, after all that has passed, we should fail to make a generous 
and liberal provision for our venerable guest? We have, un- 
der circumstances calculated to give to the event great celeb- 
rity, invited him to our shores. We have received him with the 
utmost enthusiasm. The people have everywhere greeted 
him in the warmest terms of gratitude and affection. 

6. Now what will be thought of us in Europe, and, what is 
much more important, how will we deserve to be thought of, 
if we send back our venerable guest without any more sub- 
stantial proof of our gratitude, than vague expressions of re- 
gard? You have made him a spectacle for the world to gaze 
on. He cannot go back to France, and become the private 
citizen he was when he left it. 

7. You have, by the universal homage of your hearts and 
tongues, made his house a shrine, to which every pilgrim of 
liberty, from every quarter of the world, will repair. At least, 
let him not, after this, want the means of giving welcome to 
the Americans, who, whenever they visit the shores of France, 
will repair in crowds to his hospitable mansion, to testify their 
veneration to the illustrious compatriot of their fathers. 

8. Lregret, sir, that Ihave been compelled to say thus much 
upon the subject. But, sir, I have full confidence that there 
cannot in this house, there cannot in this nation, be but one 
universal feeling of gratitude and affection for Lafayette. 


LESSON CIV. 
The Elevated Character of Woman.—CartTer. 


1. Tue influence of the female character is now felt and 
acknowledged in all the relations of life. I speak not now of 
those distinguished women, who instruct their age through the 
publick press. Nor of those whose devout strains we take 
upon our lips when we worship. But of a much larger class ; 
of those whose influence is felt in the relations of neighbour, 
friend daughter, wife, mother. 

2. Who waits at the couch of. the sick to administer tender 


“NORTH AMSRICAN READER. 231 


charities while life lingers, or to perform the Jast acts of kind- 
ness when death comes? Where shall we look for those ex- 
amples of friendship, that most adorn our nature; those 
abiding friendships, which trust even when betrayed, and sur- 
vive all changes of fortune? 

3. Where shall we find the brightest illustrations of filial 
piety? Have you ever seen a daughter, herself perhaps 
timid and helpless, watching the decline of an aged parent, 
and holding out with heroick fortitude to anticipate his wishes, 
to administer to his wants, and to sustain his tottering steps 
to the very borders of the grave ? 

4. But in no relation does woman exercise so deep an in- 
fluence, both immediately and prospectively, as in that of 
mother. ‘To her is committed the immortal treasure of the 
infant mind. Upon her devolves the care of the first stages 
of that course of discipline, which is to form of a being, per- 
haps the most frail and helpless in the world, the fearless ruler 
of animated creation, and the devout adorer of its great 
Creator. 

S. Her smiles call into exercise the first affections that 
Spring up in our hearts. She cherishes and expands the ear- 
liest germes of our intellects. She breathes over us her deep- 
est devotions. She lifts our little hands, and teaches our little 
tongues to lisp in prayer. 

6. She watches over us, like a guardian angel, and protects 
us through all our helpless years, when we know not of her 
cares and her anxieties on our account, She follows us into 
the world of men, and. lives in us and blesses us, when she 
lives not otherwise upon the earth. 

7. What constitutes the centre of every home? Whither 
do our thoughts turn, when our feet are weary with wandering, 
and our hearts sick with disappointments? Where shall the 
truant and forgetful husband go for sympathy unalloyed and 
without design, but to the bosom of her who is ever ready 
and waiting to share in his adversity or his prosperity? And 
if there be a tribunal where the sins and the follies of a fro- 
ward child may hope for pardon and forgiveness this side heay- 
en, that tribunal is the heart of a fond and devoted mother. 

8. Finally, her influence is felt deeply in religion. “If 


232 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Christianity should be compelled to flee from the mansions of 
the great, the academies of philosophers, the halls of legisla- . 
tors, or the throng of busy men, we should find her last and 
purest retreat with woman at the fireside ; her last altar would 
be the female heart; her last audience would be the children 
gathered round the knees of the mother; her last sacrifice, 
the secret prayer escaping in silence from her lips, and heard, 
perhaps, only at the throne of God.” 


LESSON CY. 
The Banian-tree.—PoLEHAMPTON’S GaLiery. 


1. Tue banian-tree is a native of several parts of the East 
Indies. It has a woody stem, branching to a great height, 
and prodigious extent, with heart-shaped, entire leaves, ending 
in acute points. Milton has thus beautifully and correctly 
described it, as the plant to which Adam advised to have ree 
course after having eaten the forbidden fruit : 


2. So counselled he; and both together went 
Into the thickest wood : there soon they chose 
The fig-tree ; not that kind for fruit renowned, 
But such as at this day, to Indians known 
In Malabar or Deccan, spreads her arms, 
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground 
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow 
About the mother tree, a pillared shade 
High over-arched, and echoing walks between. 


3. There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, 
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds 
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade: those leaves 
They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe, 
And, with what skill they had, together sewed, 
To gird their waist. 


4. Indeed the banian-tree, or Indian fig, is perhaps the most 
beautiful of nature’s productions in that genial climate, where 
she sports with so much profusion and variety. Some of these 
trees are of amazing size and great extent, as they are contin- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 233 


ually increasing, and, contrary to most other things in animal 
and vegetable life, seem to be exenipted from decay. 

5. Every branch from the main body throws out its own 
roots ; at first, in small, tender fibres, several yards from the 
ground: these continually grow thicker until they reach the 
surface ; and there, striking in, they increase to large trunks, 
and become parent trees, shooting out new branches from the 
top: these in time suspend their roots, which, swelling into 
trunks, produce other branches ; thus continuing in a state of 
progression as long as the earth, the first parent of them all, 
contributes her sustenance. The Hindoos are peculiarly fond 
of the banian-tree ; they look upon it as an emblem of the 
Deity, from its long duration, its outstretching arms, and over- 
shadowing beneficence ; they almost pay it divine honours, and 


‘Find a fane in every sacred grove.” 


6. Near these trees the most esteemed pagodas are gener- 
alty erected ; under their shade the Brahmins spend their lives 
in religious solitude ; and the natives of all castes and tribes 
‘are fond of recreating in the cool recesses, beautiful walks, 
and lovely vistas of this umbrageous canopy, impervious to 
the hottest beams of a tropical sun. 

7. A remarkably large tree of this kind grows on an island 
in the river Nerbedda, ten miles from the city of Baroche, in 
the province of Guzerat, a flourishing settlement lately in pos- 
session of the East India Company. It is distinguished by 
the name of Cubbeer Burr, which was given it in honour of a 
famous saint. 

8. It was once much larger than at present ; but high floods 
have carried away the banks of the island where it grows, and 
with them such parts of the tree as had thus far extended their 
roots ; yet what remains is about 2000 feet in circumference, 
measured round the principal stems ; the overhanging branches, 
not yet struck down, cover a much larger space. 

9. The chief trunks of this single tree (which in size 
greatly exceed our [English elms and oaks) amount to three 
hundred and fifty; the smaller stems, forming imto stronger 
supporters, are more than 3000; and every one of these is 


234 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


casting out new branches and hanging roots, in time to form 
trunks, and become the parents of a future progeny. 

10.. Cubbeer Burr is famed throughout Hindostan for its 
great extent and surpassing beauty. ‘The Indian armies gen- 
erally encamp around it, and, at stated seasons, solemn jatar- 
ras, or Hindoo festivals, are held there, to which thousands of 
votaries repair from various parts of the Mogul empire. | Itis 
said that 7000 persons find ample room to repose under its 
shade. 

11. The English gentlemen, on their hunting and shooting 
parties, used to form extensive encampments, and spend weeks 
together under this delightful pavilion ; which is generally filled 
with green woodpigeons, doves, peacocks, and a variety of 
feathered songsters ; crowded with families of monkeys per- 
forming their antick tricks, and shaded by bats of a large size, 
many of them measuring upwards of six feet from the extrem- 
ity of one wing to the other. 

12. This tree not only affords shelter, but sustenance, to all 
its inhabitants, being covered, amidst its bright foliage, with 
small figs of a rich scarlet, on which they all regale with as 
much delight as the lords of creation on their more various 
and costly fare. 


LESSON CVI. 


The true object of erecting National Monuments. 


£xtract from Danie] Webster’s Address, delivered at the laying of the Corner- . 
Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 17th, 1825. 

1. Ler it not be supposed, fellow-citizens, that, in erecting 
a monument upon the revolutionary battle-ground, the heights 
of Bunker, our object is to perpetuate national hostility, or even 
to cherish a mere military spirit. It is higher, purer, nobler. 
We consecrate our work to the spirit of national independence, 
and we- wish that the light of peace may rest upon it for ever. 

2. We rear a memorial of our conviction of that unmeas- 
ured benefit which has been conferred on our own land, and 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 235 


of the happy influences which have been produced by the same 
events on the general interests of mankind. We come, as 
Americans, to mark a spot, which must for ever be dear to us 
and our posterity. 

3. We wish that whosoever, in all coming time, shall turn 
his eye hither, may behold that the place is not undistinguished, 
where the first great battle of the revolution was fought. We 
wish that this structure may proclaim the magnitude and im- 
portance of that event to every class and every age. We wish 
that infancy may learn the purpose of its erection from ma- 
ternal lips, and that weary and withered age may behold it, 
and be solaced by the recollections which it suggests. 

4. We wish that labour may look up here, and be proud, in 
the midst of its toil. We wish that, in those days of disaster, 
which, as they come on all nations, must be expected to come 
on us also, desponding patriotism may turn its eyes hitherward, 
and be assured that the foundations of our national power still 
stand strong. We wish that this column, rising towards 
heaven, among the pointed spires of so many temples dedi- 
cated to God, may contribute also to produce, in all minds, a 
pious feeling of dependance and gratitude. 

5. We wish, finally, that the last object on the sight of him 
who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who 
revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the 
liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise, till it meet 
the sun in his coming ; let the earliest light of the morning 
gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit. 


LESSON CVII. 
The Baptism.—W1u1s. 


1. Sue stood up in the meekness of a heart 
Resting on God, and held her fair young child 
Upon her bosom, with its gentle eyes 

Folded in sleep, as if its soul had gone 
To whisper the baptismal vow in Heaven. 


236 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


2. The prayer went up devoutly, and the lips 
- Of the good man glowed fervently with faith 
That it would be even as he had prayed, - 
And the sweet child be gathered to the fold 
Of Jesus. 

3. As the holy words went on 
Her lips moved silently, and tears, fast tears, 
Stole from beneath her lashes, and upon 
The forehead of the beautiful child lay soft 
With the baptismal water. 

4. Then I thought 
That, to the eye of God, that mother’s tears 
Would be a deeper covenant, which sin, 

And the temptations of the world, and death, 

Would leave unbroken, and that she would know, 

In the clear light of heaven, how very strong 

The prayer which pressed them from her heart had been 
In leading its young spirit up to God. 


LESSON CVIII. 


The Character of Grotius.—VERPLANCK. 


Extract from a Discourse delivered after the Commencement of Geneva 
College, August 7th, 1833. 

1. Peruaps a still more brilliant example, and one yet 
more capable of firing the praiseworthy ambition of ingenuous 
youth, may be found in the history of Political and Publick 
Law. ‘Two centuries ago, the differences between nations, 
and the collision of sovereigns, were not only without any 
common arbiter, but could not be referred to any recognised 
rule of political action or decision, bearing with it the authority 
of reason, and commanding respect, if not obedience. Arms 
and battle could alone decide upon the claims of publick justice 
and humanity. 

2. Strength, therefore, in international law, was right, and 
the thunder of cannon was the logick of kings. Such was 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 237 


the state of the civilized world, when a Dutch lawyer, with- 
out official station or political power, in exile and in poverty, 
applied his mind to the consideration of the rights and duties 
ofs:nations, and the rational and natural laws of peace and 
war.* 

3. His memory was fraught with the lore of all antiquity ; 
the active discharge of publick and private duties had made 
him conversant with mankind and their concerns ; his reason 
had been sharpened by the study and application of the princi- 
ples of justice and equity between man and man, as taught in 
the Roman law. ; 

4. But in him, the proud stoical philosophy of the ancient 
civilians had been softened, tamed, and humanized by the 
mild teaching of Christian benevolence. In the severe school 
of adversity and persecution, he had been practically taught 
the lessons of toleration and humanity ; he had there learned 
to cherish and to reverence private rights, and conscience, and 
happiness, and to dread the abuses of unrestrained power. 

5. These sentiments he enforced by the experience of his- 
tory, the arguments of philosophy, and the authority of reli- 
gion, and imbodied them in a work remarkable alike for its 
lavish profusion of rare and varied learning, and its power of 
original thought. He closed his immortal volume, with a 
prayer of solemn eloquence, invoking “ God, who alone could 
work such marvels, to write these truths upon the hearts of 
the rulers of Christendom, giving them an understanding to 
discern true justice, and to reverence their fellow-creatures, as 
a race beloved of heaven.” 

6. It was a grand and bold undertaking. Magnanimous 
were its motives, its auspices hallowed, and its influence 
blessed. His doctrines were at the time received by the 


* The latter years, as well as the early life of Huco Gro- 
TIUs, were prosperous, and passed in the discharge of honour- 
able and competently lucrative publick offices; but his great 
work, De Jure Belli ac Pacis, appears to have been written 
and published in France, not long after his escape from im- 
prisonment in Holland, to which he had been sentenced for 
life, and where his whole estate had been confiscated by the 
dominant political party. 


238 NORTH AMERICAN READER. - 


great ones of the earth, as the pedantick theories of a 
dreaming scholar. But they were not therefore lost. Be- 
fore another generation had wholly passed away, they had 
formed to themselves a publick opinion among reading and 
thinking men, and thus created an august tribunal before which 
kings and statesmen were compelled to bow. Like some 
healing oil, they soothed and relieved the wounds of civil dis- 
cord and of national warfare. 

7. They spread themselves over the waves of the sea, and 
the vexed billows became calm. Sea robbery was checked, 
and legalized warfare began to respect and acknowledge the 
rights of the merchant, and the flag of the neutral. A second 
century is scarcely ended, and contending nations meet in ne- 
gotiation and argument on subjects upon which they would 
formerly have met in arms, referring their most valued inter- 
ests to be settled by the reasoning, or even the authority, of 
' Hueo Grotivs and his disciples. 

8. Thus much having already been achieved, what limit can 
we place to the glorious and peaceful influence of the father 
of international law? But the grandeur of exploits such as 
this, and those I have before alluded to, perhaps overwhelms 
us. We despair of rivalling them. We shrink back, dazzled 
by the effulgence of fame that surrounds them. If this diffi- 
dence of ourselves arises from a just, a prudent, or an humble 
‘estimate of our own talents, it cannot be blamed. 

9. But you may imitate what you cannot equal. We 
may tread in the same path with those benefactors of the 
world, though with a slower and less confident step. Every 
positive addition to the stock of actual information, however 
small, is so much gained to human nature. Besides, if we 
cannot ourselves contribute directly to improvement or dis- 
covery in art or science, we have scarcely a less obligatory 
or a less pleasing task to perform in their reception, their pres- 
ervation, and above all, in their dissemination. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 239 


LESSON CIX. 


Extract from a Sermon on the Death of the Princess Charlotte. 
Rozsert Hatt. 

1. Ir is no reflection on this amiable princess to suppose, 
that in her early dawn, with the dew of her youth so fresh upon 
her, she anticipated a long series of years, and expected to be 
led through successive scenes of enchantment, rising above 
each other in fascination and beauty. It is natural to suppose 
she identified herself with this great nation which she was born 
to govern; and that while she contemplated its pre-eminent 
lustre in arts and in arms, its commerce encircling the globe, 
its colonies diffused through both hemispheres, and the bene- 
ficial effects of its institutions extending to the whole earth, she 
considered them as so many component parts of her grandeur. 

2. Her heart, we may well conceive, would often be ruffled 
‘with emotions of ‘trembling ecstasy when she reflected that it 
was her province to live entirely for others, to compose the 
felicity of a great people, to move in a sphere which would 
afford scope for the exercise of philanthropy the most enlarged, 
of wisdom the most enlightened ; and that, while others are 
doomed to pass through the world in obscurity, she was to sup- 
ply the materials of history, and to impart that impulse to soci- 
ety which was to decide the destiny of future generations. 

3. Fired with the ambition of equalling or surpassing the 
most distinguished of her predecessors, she probably did not 
despair of reviving the remembrance of the brightest parts of 
their story, and of once more attaching the epoch of British 
glory to the annals of a female reign. It is needless to add 
that the nation went with her, and probably outstripped her in 
these delightful anticipations. 

4. We fondly hoped that a life so inestimable would be pro- 
tracted to a distant period, and that, after diffusing the bles- 
sings of a just and enlightened administration, and being sur- 
rounded by a numerous progeny, she would gradually, in a 


240 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


good old age, sink under the horizon, amidst the embraces of 
ner family and the benedictions of her country. 

5. But alas! these delightful visions are fled, and what do 
we behold in their room but the funeral pall and shroud, a pal- 
ace in mourning, a nation in tears, and the shadow of death 
settled over both like a cloud! O the unspeakable vanity of 
human hopes! the incurable blindness of man to futurity! 
ever doomed to grasp at shadows, to seize with avidity what 
turns to dust and ashes in his hands, to sow the wind and reap 
the whirlwind. 

6. How must the heart of the royal parent be torn with 
anguish on this occasion ; deprived-of a daughter who com- 
bined every quality suited to engage his affection and elevate 
his hopes; an only child, the heir of his throne ; and doomed, 
apparently, to behold the sceptre pass from his posterity into 
other hands ; his sorrow must be such as words are inadequate 
to portray. 

7. Nor is it possible to withhold. our tender sympathy from 
the unhappy mother, who, in addition to the wounds she has 
received by the loss of her nearest relations, and by still more 
trying vicissitudes, has witnessed the extinction of her last 
hope, in the sudden removal of one in whose bosom she might 
naturally hope to repose her griefs, and find a peaceful haven 
from the storms of life and the tossings of the ocean. 

8. But above all, the illustrious consort of this lamented 
princess is entitled to the deepest commiseration. How mys- 
terious are the ways of Providence in rendering the virtues of 
this distinguished personage the source of his greatest trials! 
By these he merited the distinction to which monarchs aspired 
in vain, and by these he exposed himself to a reverse of for- 
tune, the severity of which can only be adequately esomated 
by this illustrious mourner. 

9. These virtues, however, will not be permitted to lose 
their reward. They will find it in the grateful attachment of 
the British nation, in the remembrance of his having contribu- 
ted the principal share to the happiness of the most amiable 
and exalted of women; and, above all, we humbly hope, when 
the agitations of time shall cease, in a reunion with the object 
of his attachment before the presence of Him who will wipe 
every tear from the eye. 


a 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 241 


LESSON CX. 
The Wife.—Irvine. 


1. I Have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with 
which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of for- 
tune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, 
and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the ener- 
gies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation 
to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity. 

2. Nothing can be more touching, than to behold a soft and 

tender female, who had been all weakness and dependance, 
and alive to every trivial roughness, while treading the pros- 
perous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the 
comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune, and 
abiding, with unshrinking firmness, the most bitter blasts of ad- . 
versity. 
_ 3. As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage 
about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when 
the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with 
its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs ; so is 
it becutifully ordered by Providence, that woman, who is the 
mere dependant and ornament of man in his happier hours, 
should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calam- 
ity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, 
tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the 
broken heart. 

4. I was once congratulating a friend, who had around him 
a blooming family, knit together in the strongest affection. 
“I can wish you no better lot,” said he, with enthusiasm, 
“than to have a wife and children. If you are prosperous, 
there they are to share your prosperity; if otherwise, there 
they are to comfort you.” 

5. And, indeed, I have observed, that a married man, falling 
into misfortune, is more apt to retrieve his situation in the 
world than a single one ; partly, because he is more stimulated 
to exertion by the necessities of the helpless and beloved: be- 


242 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


ings who depend upon him for subsistence ; but chiefly, be- 
cause his spirits are soothed and relieved by domestick endear- 
ments, and his self-respect kept alive by finding, that though 
all abroad is darkness and humiliation, yet there is stil] a little 
world of love at home, of which he is the monarch. 

6. Whereas, a single man is apt to run to waste and self- 
neglect ; to fancy himself lonely and abandoned, and his heart 
to fall to ruin, like some deserted mansion, for want of an in- 
habitant. 


LESSON CXI. 
Invocation. —Rosert C. Sanps. 


1. O quick for me the goblet fill, 
From bright Castalia’s sparkling rill ; 
Pluck the young laurel’s flexile bough, 
And let its foliage wreath my brow ; 
And bring the lyre with sounding shell, 
The four-stringed lyre I loved so well ! 


2. Lo! as I gaze, the picture flies 
Of weary life’s realities ; 
Behold the shade, the wild wood shade, 
The mountain steeps, the checkered glade ; 
And hoary rocks and bubbling rills, 
And painted waves and distant hills. 


3. 0! for an hour, let me forget 
How much of life is left me yet ; 
Recall the visions of the past, 
Fair as these teints that cannot last, 
That all the heavens and waters o’er 
Their gorgeous, transient glories pour. 


4. Ye pastoral scenes by fancy wrought! 
Ye pageants of the loftier thought! , 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 243 


Creations proud! majestick things! 
Heroes, and demigods, and kings! 
Return, with all of shepherd’s lore, 
Or old romance that pleased before ! 


- Ye forms that are not of the earth, 

Of grace, of valour, and of worth! 

Ye bright abstractions, by the thought 
Like the great master’s pictures, wrought 
To the ideal’s shadowy mien, 

From beauties fancied, dreamed or seen! 


- Ye speaking sounds, that poet’s ear 
Alone in nature’s voice can hear ! 
Thou full conception, vast and wide, 
Hour of the lonely minstrel’s pride, 
As when projection gave of old 
Alchymy’s visionary gold! 


- Return! return! oblivion bring 

Of cares that vex, and thoughts that sting! 
The hour of gloom is o’er my soul ; 
Disperse the shades, the fiends control, 
As David’s harp had power to do, 

If sacred chronicles be true. 


- Oh come! by every classick spell, 
By old Pieria’s haunted well ; 

By revels on the Olmeian height 
Held in the moon’s religious light ; 
By virgin forms that wont to lave 
Permesus! in thy lucid wave ! 


- In vain! in vain! the strain has passed ; 
The laurel leaves upon the blast 

Float, withered, ne’er again to bloom, 
The cup is drained ; the song is dumb ; 
And spell and rhyme alike in vain 
Would woo the genial muse again. 


244 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CXII. 
Human Life.—J. K. Paurpina. 


1. THERE are certain conceited moralists, or philosophers, 
if so please you, and certain affected sentimentalists, who pro- 
fess to consider life and all its blessings a boon not worth re- 
ceiving, not worth possessing, and not worth our thanks to the 
great Giver. 

2. In the pride of fancied superiority, they pretend to look 
with calm contempt on the struggles, the pursuits, the enjoy- 
ments of their fellow-creatures, and to hold themselves aloof 
from such a petty warfare for petty objects. They under- 
value the enjoyments, they exaggerate the sufferings of the 
human race, and indirectly impeach the mercy of Providence, 
in having created countless millions of human beings only to 
increase the sum of misery in this world. 

3. But, for our part, we hold no communion with such men, 
whether they are sincere or not; nor do we believe for one 
single moment (except, peradventure, when suffering a twinge 
of the toothache) that the good-hearted, well-disposed in- 
habitants of this world, take them by and large, do not on the 
whole enjoy more than they suffer even here, where it would 
seem from these philosophers and sentimentalists, there is as 
little distribution of infinite justice as there is dispensation of 
infinite mercy. 

4, What though there are intervals of sorrow, disappoint- 
ment, remorse, agony, if you will, mingled in the cup of ex- 
istence ; that man must be very wretched indeed who, in Jook- 
ing back upon his course, cannot count far more hours of en- 
joyment than of suffering. We deceive ourselves perpetually, 
and there is nothing which we exaggerate more than the or- 
dinary calamities of others, until the truth is brought home to 
ourselves by being placed in the same situation. 

5. When mankind appear to be plunged in the very waters 
of bitterness, without hope or consolation, they are not, after 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 245 


all, so wretched as might be imagined by the young and inex- 
perienced. Melancholy, grief, nay, even despair can find a 
strange pleasure in unlimited self-indulgence. 

6. The good Being who gives the wound seems to have 
provided a remedy to soften its pangs, by ordaining that the 
very grief which dwells in the innermost heart should be 
mixed with some rare ingredients that sweeten or alleviate the 
bitter draught. In his extremest justice, he seems to re- 
member mercy; and while he strikes, he spares. 

7. Amidst clouds and darkness there is still an unextin- 
guished light; in storms and tempests there floats a saving 
plank ; amidst the deepest wo there is a sad luxury in giving 
way without restraint to tears; in calling to mind again and 
again the lost object of our affections, summing up the extent 
of our irretrievable loss, and pouring into our own wounds the 
balm of our own pity. — 

8. Happiness consists in a quiet series of almost imper- 
ceptible enjoyments that make little impression on the 
memory. Every free breath we draw is an enjoyment; 
every thing beautiful in nature or art is a source of enjoy- 
ment; memory, hope, fancy, every faculty of the intellect of 
man is a source of enjoyment; the flowers, the fruits, the 
birds, the woods, the waters, the course, the vicissitudes, and 
the vast phenomena of nature, created, regulated, and pre- 
served by the mighty hand of an omnipotent Being, all are 
legitimate and reasonable sources of enjoyment, within the 
reach of every rational being. 

9. Death is indeed the lot of all, and all should yield a calm 
obedience to the law of nature when the hour shall come. 
But a fretful impatience or an affected contempt of life, is as. 
little allied to philosophy as to religion. 


LESSON CXIIl. 
On the Death of General Hamilion.—Dr. Nort. 


1. He yielded to the force of an imperious custom; and, 
yielding, he sacrificed a life in which all had an interest: and 


246 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


he is lost; lost to his country, lost to his family, and lost to us. 
For this act, because he disclaimed it, and was penitent, I for- 
give him. But there are those whom I cannot forgive. I 
mean not his antagonist, over whose erring steps, if there are 
tears in heaven, a pious mother looks down and weeps. 

2. If he is capable of feeling, he suffers already all that 
humanity can suffer. Suffers, and wherever he may fly, will 
suffer with the poignant recollection of having taken the life of 
one who was too magnanimous in return to attempt his own. 
Had he known this, it must have paralyzed his arm while it 
pointed, at so incorruptible a bosom, the instrument of death. 
Does he know this now, his heart, if it is not adamant, must 
soften; if it is not ice, it must melt. 

3. But on this article I forbear. Stained with blood as he 
is, if he is penitent, I forgive him; and if he is not, before 
these altars where all of us appear as suppliants, I wish not to 
excite your vengeance, but rather, in behalf of an object rendered 
wretched and pitiable by crime, to wake your prayers. But I 
have said, and I repeat it, there are those whom I cannot for- 
give. I cannot forgive that minister at the altar who has hith- 
erto forborne to remonstrate on this subject. 

4. I cannot forgive that publick prosecutor, who, intrusted 
with the duty of avenging his country’s wrongs, has seen those 
wrongs, and taken no measures to avenge them. I cannot 
forgive that judge upon the bench, or that governour in the 
chair of state, who has lightly passed over such offences. I 
cannot forgive the publick, in whose opinion the duellist finds 
a sanctuary. 

5. I cannot forgive you, my brethren, who, till this late 
hour, have been silent, while successive murders were com- 
mitted. No; I cannot forgive you, that you have not, in 
common with the freemen of this state, raised your voice to 
“the powers that be,” and loudly and explicitly demanded an 
execution of your laws. Demanded this in a manner which, 
if it did not reach the ear of government, would, at least, have 
reached the heavens, and pleaded your excuse before the God 
that fills them, in whose presence, as I stand, I should not 
feel myself innocent of the blood which cries against us, had 
I been silent. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 247 


6. But I have not been silent. Many of you who hear me 
are my witnesses, the walls of yonder temple where I have 
heretofore addressed you, are my witnesses, how freely I have 
animadverted on this subject in the presence, both of those 
who have violated the laws, and of those whose indispensable 
duty it is to see the laws executed on those who violate them. 


LESSON CXIV. 
Description of the Queen of France.—Burke. . 


1. Ir is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the 
Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and 
surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to 
touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the ho- 
rizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just be- 
gan to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life, 
and splendour, and joy. Oh! whata revolution! and what a 
heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that eleva- 
tion and that fall! 

2. Little did I dream that, when she added titles of venera- 
tion to those of enthusiastick, distant, respectful love, that she 
should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against dis- 
grace concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I should 
live to see such disasters heaped upon her in a nation of 
gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers, 
I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their 
scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with 
insult. 

3. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, 
economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory 
of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall 
we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud 
submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the 
heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an 
exalted freedom. 

4. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of na- 


’ 


248 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


tions, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroick enterprise, 1s 
gone! Itis gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity 
of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired 
courage, while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever 
it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by 
losing all its grossness. 


LESSON CXY. 
The Seasons.—Montuiy ANTHOLOGY. 


l. “TJ solitary court 
The inspiring breeze, and meditate upon the book 
Of nature, ever open; aiming thence, 
Warm from the heart, to learn the moral song.” 


Persons of reflection and sensibility contemplate with in- 
terest the scenes of nature. ‘The changes of the year impart 
a colour and character to their thoughts and feelings. 

2. When the seasons walk their round, when the earth 
buds, the corn ripens, and the leaf falls, not only are the senses 
impressed, but the mind is instructed ; the heart is touched 
with sentiment, the fancy amused with visions. To a lover 
of nature and of wisdom, the vicissitude of seasons conveys 
a proof and exhibition of the wise and benevolent contri- 
vance of the Author of all things. 

3. When suffering the inconveniences of the ruder parts 
of the year, we may be tempted to wonder why this rotation 
is necessary ; why we could not be constantly gratified with 
vernal bloom and fragrance, or summer beauty and profusion, 
We imagine that, in a world of our creation, there would al- 
ways be a blessing in the air, and flowers and fruits on the 
earth. 

4, The chilling blast and driving snow, the desolated field, 
withered foliage, and naked tree, should make no part of the 
scenery which we would produce. _A little thought, however, 
is sufficient to show the folly, if not impiety, of such distrust 
in the appointments of the great Creator. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 249 


5, The succession and contrast of the seasons give scope 
to that care and foresight, diligence and industry, which are 
essential to the dignity and enjoyment of human beings, 
whose happiness is connected with the exertion of their facul- 
ties. With our present constitution and state, in which im- 
pressions on the senses enter so much into our pleasures and 
pains, and the vivacity of our sensations is affected by com- 
parison, the uniformity and continuance of a perpetual spring 
would greatly impair its pleasing effect upon our feelings. : 

6. The present distribution of the several parts of the year, 
is evidently connected with the welfare of the whole, and the 
production of the greatest sum of being and enjoyment. That 
motion in the earth, and change of place in the sun, which 
cause one region of the globe to be consigned to cold, decay, 
and barrenness, impart to another heat and life, fertility and 
beauty. ‘ 

7. While in our climate the earth is bound with frost, and 
the “ chilly smothering snows” are falling, the inhabitants of 
another behold the earth, first planted with vegetation and ap- 
parelled in verdure, and those of a third are rejoicing in the 
appointed weeks of harvest. 

8. Each season comes attended with its benefits, and 
beauties, and pleasures. All are sensible of the charms of 
spring. ‘Then the senses are delighted with the feast that is 
furnished on every field, and on every hill. The eye is 
sweetly delayed on every object to which it turns. — It is grate- 
ful to perceive how widely, yet chastely, nature hath mixed 
her colours and painted her robe; how bountifully she hath 
scattered her blossoms and flung her odours. We listen with 
joy to the melody she hath awakened in the groves, and catch 
health from the pure and tepid gales that blow from the 
mountains. 

9. When the summer exhibits the whole force of active 
nature, and shines in full beauty and splendour; when the 
succeeding season offers its ‘ purple stores and golden grain,” 
or displays its blended and softened teints; when the winter 
puts on its sullen aspect, and brings stillness and repose, af- 
fording a respite from the labours which have oecupied the 
preceding months, inviting us to reflection, and compensating 


L3 


250 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


for the want of attractions abroad by fireside delights and 
homefelt joys; in all this interchange and variety we find 
reason to acknowledge the wise and benevolent care of the 
God of seasons. 

10. We are passing from the finer to the ruder portions of 
the year. ‘The sun emits a fainter beam, and the sky is fre- 
quently overcast. The gardens and fields have become a 
waste, and the forests have shed their verdant honours. The 
hills are no more enlivened with the bleating of flocks, and the 
woodland no longer resounds with the song of birds. In 
these changes we see evidences of our instability, and images 
of our transitory state. 


*“So flourishes and fades majestick man.” 


11. Our life is compared to a falling leaf. When we are 
disposed to count on protracted years, to defer any serious 
thoughts of futurity, and to extend our plans through a long 
succession of seasons; the spectacle of the ‘ fading, many- 
coloured woods,” and the naked trees, affords a salutary ad- 
monition of our frailty. It should teach us to fill the short 
year of life, or that portion of it which may be allotted to us, 
with useful employments and harmless pleasures ; to practise 
that industry, activity, and order, which the course of the 
natural world is constantly preaching. 

12. Let not the passions blight the intellect in the spring of 
its advancement; nor indolence nor vice canker the promise 
of the heart in the blossom. ‘Then shall the summer of life 
be adorned with moral beauty ; the autumn yield a harvest of 
wisdom and virtue ; and the winter of age be cheered with 
pleasing reflections on the past, and bright hopes of the future. 


LESSON CXVI. 


Extract from an Oration delivered at Cambridge, July 
4, 1826.—E. Everett. 


1. Tue greatest engine of moral power which human na- 
ture knows, is an organized, prosperous state. All that man 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 251 


in his individual capacity can do; all that he can effect by his 
fraternities, by his ingenious discoveries and wonders of art, 
or by his influence over others, is as nothing, compared with 
the collective, perpetuated influence on human affairs and 
human happiness, of a well constituted, powerful common- 
wealth. 

2. It blesses generations with its sweet influence; even 
the barren earth seems to pour out its fruits under a system 
where property is secure, while her fairest gardens are blighted 
by despotism. Men, thinking, reasoning men, abound be- 
neath its benignant sway ; nature enters into a beautiful accord, 
a better, purer consent with man, and guides an industrious 
citizen to every rood of her smiling wastes; and we see, at 
length, that what has been called a state of nature, has been 
most falsely, calumniously so denominated ; that the nature 
of man is neither that of a savage, a hermit, nor a slave ; but 
that of a member of a well-ordered family, that of a good 
neighbour, a free citizen, a well-informed, good man, acting 
with others like him. 

3. This is the lesson which is taught in the charter of our 
independence ; this is the lesson which our example is to teach 
the world. The epick poet of Rome; the faithful subject of 
an absolute prince, in unfolding the duties and destinies of 
his countrymen, bids them look down with disdain on the 
polished and intellectual arts of Greece, and deem their arts 
to be, 


* To rule the nations with imperial sway ; 
To spare the tribes that yield; fight down the proud ; 
And force the mood of peace upon the world.” 


4. A nobler counsel breathes from the charter of our inde- 
pendence ; a happier province belongs to our free republick. 
Peace we would extend, but by persuasion and example ; the 
moral force, by which alone it can prevail among the nations. 

5. Wars we may encounter; but it is in the sacred char- 
acter of the injured and the wronged; to raise the trampled 
rights of humanity from the dust ; to rescue the mild form of 
Liberty from her abode among the prisons and the scaffolds 
of the elder world, and to set her in the chair of state among 


252 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


her adoring children ; to give her beauty for ashes; a health- 
ful action for cruel agony ; to put at last a period to her war- 
fare on earth; to tear her star-spangled banner from the 
perilous ridges of battle, and plant it on the rock of ages. 
There be it fixed for ever, the power of a free people slumber- 
ing in its folds, their peace reposing in its shade! 


LESSON CXVII. 


The Rivulet.—BryantT. 


1. Tuis little rill that, from the springs 
Of yonder grove its current brings, 
Plays on the slope awhile, and then 
Goes prattling into groves again, 
Oft to its warbling waters drew 
My little feet, when life was new. 


2. When woods in early green were dressed, 
And from the chambers of the west 
The warmer breezes, travelling out, 
Breathed the new scent of flowers about, 
My truant steps from home would stray, 
Upon its grassy side to play, 
List the brown thrasher’s vernal hymn, 
And crop the violet on its brim, 
With blooming cheek and open brow, 
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou. 


3. And when the days of boyhood came, 
And I had grown in love with fame, 
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried 
My first rude numbers by thy side. 
Words cannot tell how bright and gay 
The scenes of life before me lay. 
Then glorious hopes, that now to speak 
Would bring the blood into my cheek, 
Passed o’er me; and I wrote on high 
A name I deemed should never die. 


4. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Years change thee not. Upon yon hill 
The tall old maples, verdant still, 

Yet tell, grandeur of decay, 

How swift the years have passed away, 
Since first, a child, and half afraid, 

I wandered in the forest shade. 


Thou, ever joyous rivulet, 

Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet ; 
And sporting with the sands that pave 
The windings of thy silver wave, 
And dancing to thy own wild chime, 
Thou laughest at the lapse of time. 


. The same sweet sounds are in my ear 


My early childhood loved to hear ; 
As pure thy limpid waters run, 

As bright they sparkle to the sun ; 
As fresh and thick the bending ranks 
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks ; 
The violet there, in soft May dew, 
Comes up, as modest and as blue ; 
As green amidst thy current’s stress, 
Floats the scarce-rooted water-cress ; 
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen, 
Still chirps as merrily as then. 


. Thou changest not; but I am changed, 


Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged ; 
And the grave stranger, come to see 
The play-place of his infancy, 

Has scarce a single trace of him 

Who sported once upon thy brim. 

The visions of my youth are past, 
Too bright, too beautiful to last. 


. P’ve tried the world; it wears no more 


The colouring of romance it wore. 
Yet well has nature kept the truth 
She promised to my earliest youth ; 
The radiant beauty, shed abroad 
On all the glorious works of God,. 


253 


254 NORTH AMFxICAN READER. 


Shows freshly, to my sobered eye, 
Each charm it wore in days gone by. 


9. A few brief years shall pass away, 
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray, 
Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold 
My ashes in the embracing mould, 

(If haply the dark will of fate 
Indulge my life so long a date) 

May come for the last time to look 
Upon my childhood’s favourite brook. 


10. Then dimly on my eye shall gleam 
The sparkle of thy dancing stream ; 
And faintly on my ear shall fall 
Thy prattling current’s merry call ; 
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright 
As when thou met’st my infant sight. 


11. And I shall sleep, and on thy side, 
As ages after ages glide, 
Children their early sports shall try, 
And pass to hoary age and die. 
But thou, unchanged from year to year, 
Gayly shalt play and glitter here ; 
Amidst young flowers and tender grass, 
Thy endless infancy shall pass ; 
And, singing down thy narrow glen, 
Shalt mock the fading race of men. 


LESSON CXVIII. 


The Danger of Altering the Constitution. 


Extract from Gouverneur Morris’s Speech on the Judiciary, delivered in the 
United States Senate, January 14, 1802. 


1, Mr. Presipent,—lIs there a member of this house who 
can lay his hand on his heart and say, that consistently with 
the plain words of our constitution, we have a right to repeal 


NORTH AMERICAN READFR, 255 


this law? I believe not. And if we undertake to construe 
this constitution to our purposes, and say that publick opinion 
is to be our judge, there is an end to all constitutions. To 
what will not this dangerous doctrine lead ? 

2. Should it to-day be the popular wish to destroy the first 
magistrate, you can destroy him: and should he to-morrow be 
able to conciliate to himself the will of the people, and lead 
them to wish for your destruction, it is easily eflected. Adopt 
this principle, and the whim of the moment will not only be the 
law, but the constitution of our country. 

3. Some, indeed, flatter themselves, that our destiny will be 
like that of Rome. Such, indeed, it might be, if we had the 
same wise, but vile aristocracy, under whose guidance they 
became the masters of the world. But we have not that 
strong aristocratick arm, which can seize a wretched citizen, 
scourged almost to death by a remorseless creditor, turn him 
into the ranks, and bid him, as a soldier, bear our eagle in tri- 
umph round the globe! I hope, indeed, we shall never have 
such an abominable institution. 

4. But what, I ask, will be the situation of these states - 
(organized as they now are), if, by the dissolution of our na- 
tional compact, they be left to themselves? What is the prob- 
able result? We shall either be the victims of foreign intrigue, 
and, split into factions, fall under the domination of a foreign 
power ; or else, after the misery and torment of civil war, be- 
come the subjects of a usurping military despot. What but 
this compact, what but this specifick part of it, can save us 
from ruin ? 

5. The judicial power, that fortress of the constitution, is 
now to be overturned. Yes, with honest Ajax, I would not 
only throw a shield before it, I would build around it a wall of 
brass. But I am too weak to defend the rampart against the 
host of assailants. I must call to my assistance their good 
sense, their patriotism, and their virtue. Do not, gentlemen, 
suffer the rage of passion to drive reason from her seat. 

6. If this law be indeed bad, Jet us join to remedy ‘the de- 
fects. Has it been passed in a manner which wounded your 
pride, or roused your resentment? Have, I conjure you, the 
magnanimity to pardon that offence. I entreat, I implore you, 


256 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


to sacrifice those angry passions to the interests of our coun- 
try. Pour out this pride of opinion on the altar of patriotism. 
Let it be an expiatory libation for the weal of America. 

7. Do not, I beseech you, do not suffer that pride to plunge 
us all into the abyss of ruin. Indeed, it will be but of little, 
very little avail, whether one opinion or the other be right or 
wrong ; it will heal no wounds, it will pay no debts, it will re- 
build no ravaged towns. Do not rely on that popular will, 
which has brought us frail beings into political existence. That 
opinion is but a changeable thing. It will soonchange. This 
very measure will change it. You will be deceived. 

8. Do not, I beseech you, in reliance on a foundation so 
frail, commit the dignity, the harmony, the existence of our na- 
tion, to the wild wind. ‘Trust not your treasure to the waves. 
Throw not your compass and your charts into the ocean. Do 
not believe that its billows will waft you into port. Indeed, 
you will be deceived. 

9. Cast not away this only anchor of our safety. I have 
seen its progress. I know the difficulties through which it 
was obtained. I stand in the presence of Almighty God, and 
of the world; and I declare to you, that if you lose this char- 
ter, never! no, never will you get another! We are now, 
perhaps, arrived at the parting point. Here, even here, we 
stand on the brink of fate. Pause, pause, for heaven’s sake, 
pause ! 


LESSON CXIX. 


Description of a Palace in a Valley.—Dr. Jounson’s 
RassELas, 


1. Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, 
and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who ex- 
pect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the 
deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the mor- 
row; attend to the history of Rasselas prince of Abyssinia. 

2. Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty emperour, in 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 257 


whose dominions the father of waters begins his course ; 
whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters 
over the world the harvests of Egypt. 

3. According to the custom which has descended from age 
to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was 
confined in a private palace, with the other sons and daughters 
of Abyssinian royalty, till the order of succession should call 
him to the throne. 

4, The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had 
destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes, was a 
spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on 
every side by mountains, of which the summits overhang the 
middle part. 

5. The only passage by which it could be entered was a 
cavern that passed under a rock, of which it had long been 
disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human in- 
dustry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick 
wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed 
with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so 
massy, that no man, without the help of engines, could open 
‘or shut them. 

6. From the mountains on every side rivulets descended, 
that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed 
a lake in the middle, inhabited by fish of every species, and 
frequented by every fowl which nature has taught to dip the 
wing in water. This lake discharged its superfluities by a 
stream, which entered a dark cleft of the mountain on the 
northern side, and fell with dreadful noise from precipice to 
precipice, till it was heard no more. 

7. The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, 
the banks of the brooks were diversified with flowers ; every 
blast shook spices from the rocks, and every month dropped 
fruits upon the ground. All animals that bite the grass, or 
browse the shrubs, whether wild or tame, wandered in this ex- 
tensive circuit, secured from beasts of prey by the mountains 
which confined them. 

8. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the pas- 
tures, on another al] the beasts of chase frisking in the lawns : 
the sprightly kid was bounding on the rocks, the subtle 


258 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn elephant re- 
posing in the shade. All the diversities of the world were 
brought together. The blessings of nature were collected, 
and its evils extracted and excluded. 

* 9. The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants 
with the necessaries of life ;, and all delights and superfluities 
were added at the annual visit which the emperour paid his 
children, when the iron gate was opened to the sound of 
musicks and during eight days, every one that resided in the 
valley was required to propose whatever might contribute to 
make seclusion pleasant, to fill up the vacancies of attention, 
and lessen the tediousness of time. 

10. Every desire was immediately iit: All the artif- 
icers of pleasure were called to gladden the festivity ; the 
musicians exerted the power of harmony, and the dancers 
showed their activity before the princes, in hopes that they 
should pass their lives in blissful captivity, to which those only 
were admitted whose performance was thought able to add 
novelty to luxury. 

11. Such was the appearance of security and delight which 
this retirement afforded, that they to whom it was new always 
desired that it might be perpetual; and as those on whom the 
iron gate had once closed were never suffered to return, the 
effect of longer experience could not be known. Thus every 
year produced new scenes of delight, and new competitors for 
imprisonment. 

12. ‘The palace stood on an eminence, raised about thirty 
paces above the surface of the lake. It was divided into 
many squares, or courts, built with greater or less magnifi- 
cence, according to the rank of those for whom they were de- 
signed. The roofs were turned into arches of massy stone, 
joined by a cement that grew harder by time; and the build- 
ing stood from century to century, deriding the solstitial rains 
and equinoctial hurricanes, without need of reparation. 

13. ‘This house, which was so large as to be fully known 
to none but some ancient officers who successively inherited 
the secrets of the place, was built as if Suspicion herself had 
dictated the plan. ‘To every room there was an open and 
secret passage ; every square had a communication with the 


* 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. c 259 


rest, either from the upper stories by private galleries, or by 
subterraneous passages from the lower apartments. 

14. Many of the columns had unsuspected cavities, in 
which a long race of monarchs had _ reposited their treasures. 
They then closed up the opening with marble, which was 
never to be removed but in the utmost exigences of the king- 
dom; and recorded their accumulations in a book, which was 
itself concealed in a tower, not entered but by the emperour, 
attended by the prince who stood next in succession. 


LESSON CXX. 
The Miser.—Po tox. 


1. Gotp many hunted, sweat and bled for gold ; 
Waked all the night, and laboured all the day ; 
And what was this allurement, dost thou ask ? 
A dust dug from the bowels of the earth, 
Which, being cast into the fire, came out 
A shining thing that fools admired, and called 
A god; and in devout and humble plight 
Before it kneeled, the greater to the less. 

2. And on its altar sacrificed ease, peace, 

Truth, faith, integrity ; good conscience, friends, 
Love, charity, benevolence, and all . 

The sweet and tender sympathies of life ; 

And to complete the horrid murderous rite, 

And signalize their folly, offered up 

Their souls, and an eternity of bliss, 

To gain them; what? an hour of dreaming joy ; 
A feverish hour that hasted to be done, 

And ended in the bitterness of wo. 

3. Most, for the luxuries it bought, the pomp, 

’ The praise, the glitter, fashion, and renown, 
This yellow phantom followed and adored. 
But there was one in folly farther gone, 

With eye awry, incurable, and wild, 


~ 260 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


The laughingstock of devils and of men, 
And by his guardian angel quite given up, 
The miser, who with dust inanimate 

Held wedded intercourse. 

4, Ill-guided wretch ! 
Thou mightst have seen him at the midnight hour, 
When good men slept, and in light-winged dreams 
Ascended up to God, in wasteful hall, 

With vigilance and fasting worn to skin 
And bone, and wrapped in most debasing rags, 
Thou mightst have seen him bending o’er his heaps, 
And holding strange communion with his gold ; 
And as his thievish fancy seemed to hear 
The night-man’s foot approach, starting alarmed, 
And in his old, decrepit, withered hand, 
That palsy shook, grasping the yellow earth 
To make it sure. 

5. Of all God made upright, 
And in their nostrils breathed a living soul, 
Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased ; 
Of all that sold Eternity for Time, 
None bargained on so easy terms with death. 
Illustrious fool! Nay, most inhuman wretch! 
He sat among his bags, and, with a look 
Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor 
Away unalmsed, and midst abundance died, 
Sorest of evils! died of utter want. 


LESSON CXXI. 


Self-Delusion ; a Letter from a Father to his Son.— 
A. B. Jounson. 


1, Wuen I was a boy, I often amused myself by placing 
a common mirror in such a position, that I could observe the 
people who passed my window, and also the inmates of an 
opposite house. As I made my observations in seclusion, I 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 261 


supposed that I was unseen by those at whom I was gazing ; 
nor was I undeceived till I discovered, by the actions of the 
passengers, that the means which revealed them to me, revealed 
me to them. 

2. The ignorance thus displayed by me is, I believe, com- 
mon to other men, and not confined to optical phenomena. 
Every person, can detect deceit, falsehood, and equivocation 
in the persons who address him; while he believes that his 
own deceit, falsehood, and equivocation escape detection. 
. Events are, however, so connected, that a man rarely utters 
an.untruth but it will be detected, either immediately by its 
incongruity to other events, or subsequently by examination. 

3. A like delusion is exemplified in men who use intoxica- 

ting drinks. So long as they can walk without staggering, 
they imagine that their ebriety is known only to themselves ; 
though they are aware of an ability to detect in others the 
slightest approach towards intemperance. Perhaps nothing is 
more uncommon than for a man to practise any thing long or 
much, without its becoming known, how secretly soever the 
act may be performed. 
' 4. We are constantly speaking of the vices of others, and 
of their follies, propensities, and faults. ‘They are not revealed 
by the confession of the perpetrators, but the observation of 
beholders ; and still every man supposes that his own faults 
can be successfully screened from detection. 

5. I hope this doctrine may induce you never to act or 
speak differently from what you would, if all the concomitants 
and motives of the act or speech were known to the whole 
world as distinctly as they are to you. They are known to 
the world, how much soever you may believe the contrary. 

6. I often hear some man utter a malicious remark about 
an absent person, and vainly endeavour to make me suppose 
that the remark proceeds from benevolence. I can see through 
his devices, and why shall I suppose that I can conceal mine 
more successfully ? 

‘7. Again, you will frequently hear some observation which 
you know is dictated by the vanity of the speaker, though he 
will impute the observation to a worthy motive. Skepticism 
and irreligion often dictate remarks which the speaker imagines 


262 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


will not reveal his infidelity; though kindred remarks from 
other men he will readily trace to irreligion. 

8. You will see actions and hear speeches which you will 
deduce from a conscious superiority of wealth, family, or sta- 
tion; while the person who is thus acting or speaking from 
unworthy impulses, will believe that his motives are inscrutable. 

9. By a similar delusion, a man will often think that actions, 
which are intolerably disSusting when performed by other per- 
sons, may be practised by him inoffensively. On this princi- 
ple alone can we account for the spitting, hawking, picking the 
teeth, nose, ears, and nails. with which we frequently are an- 
noyed. ‘The perpetrator of these disgusting acts may be offend- 
ed with them in other men; but he supposes that other persons 
are either less delicate than he, or taat his abominations are 
less offensive than theirs. 

10, A man’s actions are never disgusting to himself, and 
hence he possesses no criterion by which to determine their 
character in this particular, but by experiencing the effect on 
himself of similar actions, when performed by other men. I 
never discovered that cutting the nails of one’s hand is dis- 
gusting, till I saw the operation performed. by a vulgar and dirty 
person ; for I find that an action which is tolerable in our su- 
periours and patrons, may be-very disgusting when performed 
by our inferiours and dependants. 

11. Finally, on the above subject, I would suggest this rule 
to you; avoid every action which in other persons is offensive 
to you; for you may be almost sure, that the same action in 
you will be offensive to them. 


LESSON CXXII. 
The Grave of Kérner.—Mrs. Hemans. 


Charles Theodore Korner, the celebrated young German poet and soldier, 
was killed in a skirmish with a detachment of French troops, on the 20th 
of August, 1813, a few hours after the composition of his popular piece, 
“The Sword Song.” He was buried at the village of Wobbelin in Meck- 
lenburg, under a beautiful oak, in a recess of which he had frequently de- 
posited verses composed by him while campaigning in its vicinitv. The 
monument erected to his memory is of cast iron, and the upper part i@ 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 263 


wrought into a lyre and a sword, a favourite emblem of Koémer’s, from 
which one of his works had been entitled. Near the grave of the poet is 
that of his only sister, who died of grief for his loss, having only survived 
him long enough to complete his portrait, and a drawing of his burial-place. 
Over the gate of the cemetery is engraved one of his own lines, 


“Forget not the faithful Dead.” 


1. GREEN wave the oak for ever o’er thy rest, 
Thou that beneath its crowning foliage sleepest, 
And, in the stillness of thy country’s breast, 
Thy place of memory, as an altar, keepest ; 
Brightly thy spirit o’er her hills was poured, 
Thou of the Lyre and Sword! 
2. Rest, Bard, rest, Soldier! by the father’s hand 
Here shall the child of after years be led, 
With his wreath-offering silently to stand, 
In the hushed presence of the glorious dead. 
Soldier and Bard! for thou thy path hast trod ‘' 
With Freedom and with God. 
3. The oak waved proudly o’er thy burial rite, 
On thy crowned bier to slumber warriours bore thee, 
And with true hearts thy brethren of the fight 
Wept as they veiled their drooping banners o’er thee ; 
And the deep guns with rolling peal gave token 
That Lyre and Sword were broken. 
4. Thou hast a hero’s tomb, a lovelier bed 
Is hers, the gentle girl beside thee lying, 
The gentle girl, that bowed her fair young head, 
When thou wert gone, in silent sorrow dying. 
Brother, true friend! the tender and the brave, 
She pined to share thy grave. 
5. Fame was thy gift from others ; but for her, 
To whom the wide world held that only spot ; 
She loved thee, lovely in your lives ye were, 
And in your early deaths divided not. 
Thou hast thine oak, thy trophy ; what hath she ? 
Her own best place by thee! 
6. It was thy-spirit, brother! which had made 
The bright world glorious to her thoughtful eye, 
Since first in childhood midst the vines ye played, 
And sent glad singing through the free blue sky. 


264 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Ye were but two, and when that spirit passed, 
Wo to the one, the last ! 
7. Wo, yet not long, she lingered but to trace 
Thine image from the image in her breast, 
Once, once ayain to see that buried face 
But smile upon her, ere she went to rest. 
Too sad a smile ! its living light was o’er, 
It answered hers no more. 
8. The earth grew silent when thy voice departed, 
The home too lonely whence thy step had fled ; 
What then was left for her, the faithful-hearted 2? 
Death, death, to still the yearning for the dead. 
Softly she perished, be the Flower deplored, 
Here with the Lyre and Sword. 
9. Have ye not met ere now? so let those trust 
That meet for moments but to part for years, 
That weep, watch, pray, to hold back dust from dust, - 
That love, where love is but a fount of tears. 
Brother, sweet sister! peace around ye dwell : 
Lyre, Sword, and Flower, farewell ! 


LESSON CXXIII. 
Preface to an Album.—V ERPLANCK. 


1. Tuts book is destined to preserve the memorials of ac- 
quaintance, of esteem, of friendship, of affection; to contain 
the thoughts of many minds; to bear the impress of many 
characters. Who can anticipate its future contents? How 
various will be its tone, its temper, its talent, its moral expres- 
sion, influence, and feeling! 

2. Such a volume is an apt emblem of the history of our 
own minds. In the mysterious order of Providence, we are 
all made subject to each other’s influence. We assume the 
shape, colour, fashion of the little world about us. 

3. We become the very abstracts and brief chronicles of 
the opinions, feelings, tastes, and principles of those among. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 265 


whom we live. Weare as mirrors, giving back the reflections 
of the-society in which we are placed; sometimes, it may be, 
brighter and purer than the original forms themselves ; how 
much oftener imparting to them our own dimness and dis- 
tortions. 

4. Our power over the materials of which our daily thoughts 
are woven, is but that of the owner of this book over the 
thoughts which fill its pages ; a power too rarely exercised in 
real life; that of shutting out the intrusion of gross evil, and 
opening our sympathies and affections to the kindly welcome 
of all that is beautiful and good. 

5. Happy they, who, taught by the sure instinct of their 
own purity, have ever shrunk back from the near approach of 
vice. Happy they, upon whose hearts, and memory, and 
imagination, the vain and bad ones of the earth, the worldly, 
the licentious, the grovelling, have never written any lasting 
transcript of their own thoughts. 

6. Into such the spirit of this world does not enter; its 
seductions, follies, and vices, soil not them; the delusions of 
life find no resting-place in their minds, and glide off like rain- 
‘ drops from the pure and smooth plumage of the dove. 

7. This theme is fruitful in still deeper and higher morals. 
That influence, so powerful in its sway over us, we must, in 
turn, exert upon others. Other minds must become in part the 
transcripts of ours, and perpetuate the evil or the excellence 
of our short being here. It is not given alone to the great, 
the eloquent, or the learned; to those who speak trumpet- 
tongued to millions of their fellow-creatures, from the proud 
elevations of power or talent, thus to extend themselves in the 
production of good or ill into after-times. 

8. We are each and all of us, as waves in the vast ocean 
of human existence; our own little agitation soon subsides, 
but it communicates itself far onward and onward, and it -may 
often swell as it advances into a majesty and power with which 
it would scarcely seem possible, that our littleness could have 
had any participation. 

9. Happy, then, reader, happy thou, if thou hast confined 
the bad tendencies of thy nature to thine own breast, if thou 
hast never proved the cause of offence, not even to any “little 

M 


266 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


one ;” if thou hast led none into dangerous errour, lulled none 
into careless or contemptuous negligence of duty, nor ever 
sullied the whiteness of an innocent mind. 

10. Yet remember, that it is the mysterious and awful law 
of thy nature, that no one of us can pass through life insulated 
and solitary, leaving no trace behind him. Thy influence will 
be, must be, for good or for evil after thee. 

11. Then, although haply thou mayst have but a single tal- 
ent committed to thy charge, whether thou writest thy thoughts 
in these pages, or engravest them in living characters upon the 
hearts of those who trust, or love, or honour thee, strive always, 
that they may be such as will tend to “give ardour to virtue 
and confidence to truth,” so that others may be holier and hap- 
pier because thou hast lived. 


LESSON CXXIV. 
Winter.—Mrs. S1IcouRNEY. 


1. I pEEm thee not unlovely ; though thou comest 
With a stern visage. To the tuneless-bird, 
The tender floweret, the rejoicing stream, 

The discipline is harsh. But unto man, 
Methinks thou hast a kindlier ministry ; 

Thy lengthened eve is full of fireside joys, 
And deathless linking of warm heart to heart ; 
So that the hoarse stream passes by unheard. 
Earth, robed in white, a peaceful sabbath holds, 
And keepeth silence at her Maker’s feet. 

2. Man should rest 
Thus from his feverish passions, and exhale 
The unbreathed carbon of his festering thought, 
And drink in holy health. As the tossed bark 
Doth seek the shelter of some quiet bay, 

To trim its shattered cordage, and repair 
Its riven sails ; so should the toil-worn mind 
Refit for time’s rough voyage. Man, perchance, 


NORTI! AMERICAN READER, 267 


Soured by the world’s rough commerce, or impaired 
By the wild wanderings of his summer’s way, 
Turns like a truant scholar towards his home, 
And yields his nature to the sweet influences 

That purify and save. 

2 The ruddy boy 

Comes with his shouting school-mates from their sport, 
And throwing off his skates, with boisterous glee, 
Hastes to his mother’s side. Her tender hand 
Doth shake the snow-flakes from his glossy curls 
And draws him nearer, and with gentle voice, 
Asks of his lessons, while her lifted heart 
Solicits silently the Sire of Heaven 
To bless the lad. 

, The timid infant learns 

Better to love its father, longer sits 
Upon his knee, and with a velvet lip 
Prints on his brow such language, as the tongue 
Hath never spoken. 

3 Come thou to Jife’s feast, 

With dove-eyed meekness and bland charity, 
And thou shalt find even winter’s rugged blast 
The minstrel teacher of the well-tuned soul ; 
And when the last drop of its cup is drained, 
Arising with a song of praise, go up 
To the eternal banquet. ' 


LESSON CXXV. 


Roscoe.—Irvinc. 


1. One of the first places to which a stranger is taken in 
Liverpool, is the Atheneum. It is established on a liberal 
and judicious plan; it contains a good library, and spacious 
reading-room, and is the great literary:resort of the place. 
Go there at what hour you may, you are sure to find it filled 
with grave-looking personages, deeply absorbed in the a 
of newspapers. 

M 2 


268 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


2. As I was once visiting this haunt of the learned, my 
attention was attracted to a person just entering the room. 
He was advanced in life, tall, and of a form that might once 
have been commanding, but it was a little bowed by time, 
perhaps by care. 

3. He hada noble Roman style of countenance ; a head 
that would have pleased a painter; and though some slight 
furrows on his brow showed that wasting thought had been 
busy there, yet his eye still beamed with the fire of a poetick 
soul. There was something in his:whole appearance that 
indicated a being of a different order from the bustling race 
around him. 

4. I inquired his name, and was informed that it was Ros- 
cor. I drew back with an involuntary feeling of veneration. 
This, then, was an author of celebrity ; this was one of those 
men whose voices have gone forth to the ends of the earth ; 
with whose minds I have communed even in the solitudes of 
America. 

5. Accustomed, as we are in our country, to know Eu- 
ropean writers only by their works, we cannot conceive of 
them as of other men, engrossed by trivial or sordid pursuits, 
and justling with the crowd of common minds in the dusty 
paths of life. They pass before our imaginations like supe- 
riour beings, radiant with the emanations of their own genius, 
and surrounded by a halo of literary glory. 

6. To find, therefore, the elegant historian of the Medici 
mingling among the busy sons of traffick, at first shocked my 
poetical ideas ; but it is from the very circumstances and 
situation in which he has been placed, that Mr. Roscoe de- 
rives his highest claims to admiration. _ It is interesting to no- 
tice how some minds seem almost to create themselves ; 
springing up under every disadvantage, and working their 
solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. 

7. Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities 
of art, with which it would rear legitimate dulness to maturity ; 
and to glory in the vigour and luxuriance of her chance pro- 
ductions. She scatters the seeds of genius to the winds; and 
though some may perish among the stony places of the world, 
and some be choked by the thorns and brambles of early ad- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 269 


versity, yet others will now and then strike root even in the 
clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, and 
spread over their steril birthplace all the beauties of vege- 
tation. 

8. Such has been the case with Mr. Roscoe. Born in 
a place apparently ungenial to the growth of literary talent ; 
in the very market-place of trade; without fortune, family 
connexions, or patronage ; self-prompted, self-sustained, and 
almost self-taught, he has conquered every obstacle, achieved 
his way to eminence, and having become one of the orna-. 
ments of the nation, has turned the whole force of his talents 
and influence to advance and embellish his native town. 

9. Indeed, it is this last trait in his character which has 
given him the greatest interest in my eyes, and induced me 
particularly to point him out to my countrymen. Eminent as 
are his literary merits, he is but one among the many distin- 
guished authors of this intellectual nation. They, however, 
in general, live but for their own fame, or their own pleasures. 

10. Their private history presents no lesson to the world, 
or, perhaps, an humiliating one of human frailty and incon- 
sistency. At best, they are prone to steal away frem the 
bustle and commonplace of busy existence ; to indulge in the 
selfishness of lettered ease ; and to revel in scenes of mental, 
but exclusive enjoyment. 

11. Mr. Roscoe, on the contrary, has ene none of the 
accorded privileges of talent. He has shut himself up in no 
garden of thought, or elysium of fancy; but has gone forth 
into the highways and thoroughfares of life ; he has planted 
bowers by the wayside, for the refreshment of the pilgrim 
and the sojourner, and has opened pure fountains, where the 
labouring man may turn aside from the dust and heat of the 
day, and drink of the living streams of knowledge. 

12. There is a “daily beauty in his life,” on which man- 
kind may meditate and grow better. It exhibits no lofty and 
almost useless, because inimitable example of excellence ; 
but presents a picture of active, Ml simple and imitable vir- 
tues, which are within every man’s reach, but which, unfor- 
tunately, are not exercised by many, or this world would be a 
paradise. 


270 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


13. But his private life is peculiarly worthy the attention of 
the citizens of our young and busy country, where literature 
and the elegant arts must grow up side by side with the coarser 
plants of daily necessity ; and must depend for their culture, 
not on the exclusive devotion of time and wealth, or the 
quickening rays of titled patronage ; but on hours and seasons 
snatched from the pursuit of worldly interests, by intelligent 
and publick-spirited individuals. 

14. He has shown how much may be done for a place in 
hours of leisure by one master spirit, and how completely it 
can give its own impress to surrounding objects. Like his 
own Lorenzo de Medici, on whom he seems to have fixed 
his eye, as on a pure model of antiquity, he has interwoven the 
history of his life with the history of his native town, and has 
made the foundations of its fame the monuments of his 
virtues. 

15. Wherever you go, in Liverpool, you perceive traces of 
his footsteps in all that is elegant and liberal. He found the 
tide of wealth flowing merely in the channels of traffick ; he 
has diverted from it invigorating rills to refresh the gardens 
of literature. By his own example and constant exertions, 
he has effected that union of commerce and the intellectual 
pursuits, so eloquently recommended in one of his latest wri- 
tings ;* and has practically proved how beautifully they may 
be brought to harmonize, and to benefit each other. 

16. The noble institutions for literary and scientifick pur- 
poses, which reflect such credit on Liverpool, and are giving 
such an impulse to the publick mind, have mostly been 
originated, and have all been effectively promoted by Mr. 
Roscoe: and when we consider the rapidly increasing opu- 
lence and magnitude of that town, which promises to vie in 
commercial importance with the metropolis, it will be per- 
ceived that in awakening an ambition of mental improvement 
among its inhabitants, he has effected a great benefit to the 
cause of British literature. 


* Address on the opening of the Liverpool Institution. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 271 


LESSON CXXVI. 
‘] prry THEM.”—Bapcer’s (Vew York) Messencer. 


1. We were about making another appeal to our readers in 
behalf of the unfortunate and suffering poor of our city, when 
the following anecdote presented itself to us in the columns of 
the United States Gazette. We commend it to the careful 
attention of our readers. 

2. It appears that a poor man once undertook to emigrate 
from Castine, in Maine, to some new town in Illinois ; and 
when he had reached about half way, in passing a clumsy 
bridge, was unfortunate enough to lose his horse in the river. 
He had but this one animal to convey all his worldly property, 
consisting of a bed, one trunk of clothes, a few cooking 
utensils, a sick wife, and sick young children. 

3. These were miraculously saved from sharing the same 
fate as the poor horse, but the loss of him was enough. By 
his aid the family, it may be said, had lived and moved, and 
now that they were left helpless in a land of strangers, without 
the ability to go on or return; without money, or a single 
friend to appeal to; the case was a pretty hard one. 

4. There were a great many passers by on the other 
side ; some even laughed at the odd predicament the man was 
placed in, but by degrees a group of various kinds of people 
began to collect, all of whom pitied him, 

5. Some pitied him a great deal, some considerably, and 
some did not pity him much, because they said he might have 
known better than to try to cross the bridge, when his horse 
might swim over the river; but pity, however, seemed rather 
to predominate with them all. Some pitied the man, and 
some the horse, and most all of them pitied the poor helpless 
mother and her six more helpless children. 

6. Amidst this pitying party stood a rough, unvarnished 
son of the West; one who knew what it was to migrate some 
hundreds of miles over new roads, to locate a destitute family 


272 NORTH AMERICAN READER. | 


in the woods. Seeing the old man’s forlorn situation, and 
looking round on the by-standers, he said, “ All of you seem 
to pity these poor people very much, but I would beg leave to 
ask each of you how much 2” 

7. “There,” said he, “old gentleman,” pulling out a ten 
dollar-bill, “‘ there is the amount of my pity; and if others 
will do as I do, you may soon get another pony, and so God 
bless you.” It is needless to say the effect that this active 
charity produced. In a short time the happy emigrant ar- 
rived at his destined home, and is now a thriving farmer, and 
a good neighbour to the benevolent stranger, who was his 
“ friend in need, and a friend indeed.” 

_ 8. “Ihave related this story for the benefit of the suffer- 

ing poor in this city. There are a plenty of wellwishers to 
the unfortunate, and thousands who profess to pity the poor 
sufferers who are shivering for the want of fuel at this inclem- 
ent season. If they really do pity them, I would ask how 
much? Have they nothing that they can spare from their 
wardrobes or woodpiles, which would serve the poor better 
at this time than merely saying, ‘be ye warm and be ye 
clothed.’ Many families would be thankful for the mere cin- 
ders that are an encumbrance to the ash-holes of the rich.” 


LESSON CXXVII. 
The first Emigrants going down the Ohio.—J. K. 


PavULDING. 


1. As down Ohio’s ever-ebbing tide, 
- Oarless and sailless silently they glide, 

How still the scene, how lifeless, yet how fair, 
Was the lone land that met the strangers there ! 
No smiling villages, or curling smoke, 
The busy haunts of busy men bespoke ; 
No solitary hut, the banks along, 
Sent forth blithe Labour’s homely rustick song ; 
No urchin gambolled on the smooth white sand, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 273 


Or hurled the skipping-stone with playful hand, 
While playmate dog plunged in the clear blue wave 
And swam, in vain, the sinking prize to save. 


. Where now are seen along the river side, 

Young busy towns, in buxom painted pride, 

And fleets of gliding boats with riches crowned, 
To distant Orleans or St. Louis bound, 

Nothing appeared but Nature unsubdued, 

One endless, noiseless, woodland solitude, 

Or boundless prairie, that aye seemed to be - 

As level and as lifeless as the sea; 

They seemed to breathe in this wide world alone, 
Heirs of the Earth ; the land was all their own! 


- [was Evening now, the hour of toil was o’er, 
Yet still they durst not seek the fearful shore, 
Lest watchful Indian crew should silent creep, 
And spring upon, and murder them in sleep ; 

So through the livelong night they held their way, 
And ’twas a night might shame the fairest day ; 
So still, so bright, so tranquil was its reign, 

They cared not though the day ne’er came again. 


- The Moon high wheeled the distant hills above, 
Silvered the fleecy foliage of the grove, 

That, as the wooing zephyrs on it fell, 
Whispered it loved the gentle visit well ; 

That fair-faced orb alone to move appeared, 
That zephyr was the only sound they heard. 


. No deep-mouthed hound the hunter’s haunt betrayed, 
No lights upon the shore, or waters played, 

No loud laugh broke upon the silent air, 

To tell the wand’rers man was nestling there, 

While even the froward babe in mother’s arms, 
Lulled by the scene suppressed its loud alarms, 

And yielding to that moment’s tranquil sway, 

Sunk on the breast, and slept its rage away. 


. All, all was still, on gliding bark and shore, 
As if the Earth now slept to wake no more ; 
M3 


274 - NORTH AMERICAN READER. | 


Life seemed extinct, as when the world first smiled, 
Ere Apam was a dupe, or Eve beguiled. 


7. In such a scene the Soul oft walks abroad, 
For Silence is the energy of Gop! 
Not in the blackest Tempest’s midnight scowl, 
The Earthquake’s rocking, or the Whirlwind’s howl, 
Not from the crashing thunder-rifted cloud, 
Does His immortal mandate speak so loud, 
As when the silent Night around her throws 
Her star-bespangled mantle of repose ; 
Thunder, and Whirlwind, and the Earth’s dread shake, 
The selfish thoughts of man alone awake ; 
His lips may prate of Heav’n, but all his fears 
Are for himself, though pious he appears. 


8. But when all Nature sleeps in tranquil smiles, 
What sweet yet lofty thought the Soul beguiles 
There’s not an object ’neath the Moon’s bright beam, 
There’s not a shadow dark’ning on the stream, 
There’s not a star that jewels yonder skies, 
Whose bright reflection on the water lies, 
That does not in the lifted mind awake 
Thoughts that of Love and Heav’n alike partake ; 
While all its newly wakened feelings prove, 
That Love is Heaven, and Gop the Soul of Love. 


9. In such sweet times the spirit rambles forth 
Beyond the precincts of this grov’ling Earth, 
Expatiates in a brighter world than this, 
And plunging in the Future’s dread abyss, 
Proves an existence separate and refined, 
By leaving its frail tenement behind. 
So felt our BasiL, as he sat the while, 
Guiding his boat, beneath the moonbeam’s smile. 
For there are thoughts, which Gop alike has giv’n 
To high and low, and these are thoughts of Heav’n. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 275 


LESSON CXXVIII. 


Extract froma Speech of Robert Goodloe Harper, delivered 
before the Senate of the United States, on the Question,— 
‘“ WHetHER A SeNaATOR OF THE UNITED STATES BE 
LIABLE TO IMPEACHMENT 2” 


1, As to the dignity of the Senate, about which much has 
been said, I trust, Mr. President, that I shall always be as anx- 
iously tender of it as any other person; and I do most sol- 
emnly and seriously believe, that I am at this moment labour- 
ing for the dignity of this honourable body, in attempting to 
render its members liable to Impeachment. For which line 
of conduct is most dignified, to wrap one’s self up in legal 
inviolability, and thus avoid an inquiry into our conduct; or, 
conscious of rectitude, to brave investigation, and offer our- 
selves to the strictest scrutiny ? 

2. The awful station which this honourable body holds in 
our system ; the high and all-important trust assigned to it by 
the Constitution ; no less than to regulate all the movements 
both legislative and executive, to serve as both the ballast 
and the anchor of the political vessel ; requires that its mem- 
bers should inspire the utmost degree of confidence into the 
nation; should not only be free from guilt, but free from 
suspicion. 

3. Will they be more likely to escape suspicion, to inspire 
confidence, by declaring that they will avail themselves of a 
doubtful construction of the Constitution, to screen their own 
conduct from all inquiry except by themselves; or by boldly 
standing forth to the light, and extending to their own persons 
and actions that power of investigation by the representatives 
of the .nation, which the Constitution has appointed for those 
who exercise its powers ? 

4. I confess, Mr. President, that feeling as I do for the 
dignity of this honourable body ; deeply impressed as I am 
with the awful nature of its trust, and the essential importance 


.* 


276 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


of its inspiring the nation with the most unlimited confi- 
dence, I tremble to think of its declaring, by a solemn de- 
cision, that the conduct of its members shall be exempt from 
inquiry by Impeachment. 

5. I have now, Mr. President, gone through the various 
heads of this very important argument, to which I am far 
from supposing that I have been able to do justice. It is 
Satisfactory to me however to reflect, that my deficiencies are 
amply supplied by the cause itself, by the talents of my learned 
and eloquent associate, and above all by the wisdom of this 
honourable body ; to whose decision I now submit the subject, 
with an entire conviction that its determination will be worthy 
of the exalted station which it holds in our Government, the 
confidence reposed in it by the Constitution, and the veneration 
wherein it is held by the American people. 


LESSON CXXIX. 
Lines to a young Mother.—Spracve. 


1. Youne mother! what can feeble friendship say 
To sooth the anguish of this mournful day ? 
They, they alone, whose hearts like thine have bled, 
Know how the living sorrow for the dead ; 
Each tutored voice, that seeks such grief to cheer, 
Suikes cold upon the weeping parent’s ear ; 
I’ve felt it all, alas! too well I know 
How vain all earthly power to hush thy wo ! 
God cheer thee, childless mother! ’tis not given, 
For man to ward the blow that falls from Heav’n. 


2. I’ve felt it all, as thou art feeling now ; 
Like thee, with stricken heart and aching brow, 
I’ve sat and watched by dying beauty’s bed, 
And burning tears of hopeless anguish shed ; 
I’ve gazed upon the sweet, but pallid face, 
And vainly tried some comfort there to trace ; 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. Q77 


I’ve listened to the short and struggling breath ! 
I’ve seen the cherub eye grow dim in death ; 

Like thee I’ve veiled my head in speechless gloom, 
And laid my firstborn in the silent tomb. 


LESSON CXXX. 


On the Varieties of the Human Race.—Goon’s Boox 
oF NATURE. | 


1. Ir we throw an excursive glance over the globe, and 
contemplate the different appearances of mankind in different 
parts of it, and especially if we contrast these appearances 
where they are most unlike, we cannot but be struck with 
astonishment, and feel anxious for information concerning the 
means by which so extraordinary an effect has been pro- 
duced. | , 

2. The height of the Patagonian and the Caffre is seldom 
less than six feet, and it is no uncommon thing to meet with 
individuals among them that measure from six feet seven to six 
feet ten: compared with these, the Laplanders and Esquimaux 
are real dwarfs ; their stature seldom reaching five feet, and 
being more commonly only four. 

3. Observe the delicate cuticle, and the exquisite rose and 
lily, that beautify the face of the Georgian or Circassian : 
contrast them with the coarse skin and greasy blackness of 
the African negro, and imagination is lost in the discrepance. 
Take the nicely-turned and globular form of the Georgian 
head, or the elegant and unangular oval of the Georgian face : 
compare the former with the flat scull of the Carib; and the 
latter with the flat visage of the Mogul Tartar, and it must, at 
first sight, be difficult to conceive that each of these could 
have proceeded from one common source. 

4. Yet the diversities of the intellectual powers are, per- 
haps, as great as those of the corporeal: though I am ready 
to admit, that for certain interested purposes of the worst and 
most wicked description, these diversities, for the last half 


278 _ NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


century, have, even in our own country, been magnified vastly 
beyond their fair average, though the calumny has of late 
begun to lose its power. 

5. The external characters thus glanced at form a few of 
the extreme boundaries: but all of them run into each other 
by such nice and imperceptible gradations in contiguous coun- 
tries, and sometimes even among the same people, as to con- 
stitute innumerable shades of varieties, and to render it diffi- 
cult, if not impossible, to determine occasionally to what region 
an individual may belong when at a distance from his own 
home. 


LESSON CXXXI. 
Description of the Speedwell Mine in England.—Situman. 


1. We entered a wooden door, placed in the side of a hill, 
and descended one hundred and six stone steps, laid like those 
of a set of cellar stairs. The passage was regularly arched 
with brick, and was in all respects convenient. Having 
reached the bottom of the steps, we found a handsome vaulted 
passage cut through solid limestone. 

2. The light of our candles discovered that it extended 
horizontally into the mountain, and its floor was covered with 
an unruffled expanse of water, four feet deep. The entrance 
of this passage was perfectly similar in form to the mouth of a 
common oven, only it was much larger. Its breadth, by my 
estimation, was about five feet at the water’s surface, and 
its height four or five feet, reckoning from the same place. 

3. On this unexpected, and to me, at that moment, incom- 
prehensible canal, we found launched a large, clean, and con- 
venient boat. We embarked, and pulled ourselves along, by 
taking hold of wooden pegs, fixed for that purpose in the 
walls. Our progress was through a passage wholly artificial, 
it having been all blasted and hewn out of .the solid rock. 

4. You will readily believe that this adventure was a delight- 
ful recreation. I never felt more forcibly the power of con- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. Fi 279 


trast. Instead of crawling through a narrow, dirty passage, 
we were now pleasantly embarked, and were pushing along 
into I knew not what solitary regions of this rude earth, over 
an expanse as serene as summer seas. 

5. We had not the odours or the silken sails of Cleopa- 
tra’s barge, but we excelled her in melody of sound and dis- 
tinctness of echo; for when, in the gayety of my spirits, I 
began to sing, the boatman soon gave me to understand that 
no one should sing in his mountain without his permission ; 
and, before I had uttered three notes, he broke forth in such a 
Strain that I was contented to listen, and yield the palm with- 
out a contest. 

6. His voice, which was strong, clear, and melodious, made 
all those silent regions ring; the long, vaulted passage aug- 
mented the effect; echo answered with great distinctness, 
and had the genii of the mountain been there, they would 
doubtless have taken passage with us, and hearkened to the 
song. In the meantime we began to hear the sound of a 
distant waterfall, which grew louder and louder as we ad- 
vanced under the mountain, till it increased to such a roaring 
noise that the boatman could no longer be heard. 

7. In this manner we went on a quarter of a mile, till we 
arrived in a vast cavern formed there by nature. The miners, 
as they were blasting the rocks, at the time when they were 
forming the vaulted passage, accidentally opened their way into 
this cavern. 

8. Here I discovered how the canal was supplied with 
water ; I found that it communicated with a river running 
through the cavern at right angles with the arched passage, 
and falling down a precipice twenty-five feet into a dark abyss. 
After crossing the river, the arched way is continued a quarter 
of a mile farther on the other side, making in the whole half 
a mile from the entrance. The end of the arch is six hun- 
dred feet below the summit of the mountain. 

9. When it is considered that all this was effected by mere 
dint of hewing and blasting, it must be pronounced a stupen- 
dous performance. It took eleven years of constant labour 
to effect it. In the meantime the fortune of the adventurer 
was consumed, without any discovery of ore, except a very 


— 


280 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


little lead, and, to this day, this great work remains only a 
wonderful monument of human labour and perseverance. 

10. During the whole period of five years that they con- 
tinued this work, after they crossed the cavern, they threw the 
rubbish into the abyss, and it has not sensibly filled it up. 
They have contrived to increase the effect of the cataract by 
fixing a gate along the ledge of rocks over which the river 
falls. 

11. This gate is raised by a lever, and then the whole mass 
of water in the vaulted passage, as well as that in the river, 
presses forward towards the cataract. I ascended a ladder 
made by pieces of timber fixed in the sides of the cavern, 
and, with the aid of a candle elevated on a pole, I could dis- 
cover no top; my guide assured me that none had been found, 
although they had ascended very high. 

12. This cavern is, without exception, the most grand and 
solemn place that I have ever seen. When you view me in 
the centre of a mountain, in the midst of a void, where the 
regularity of the walls appears like some vast.rotunda ; when 
you think of a river as flowing across the bottom of this 
cavern, and falling abruptly into a profound abyss, with the 
stunning noise of a cataract; when you imagine, that, by the 
light of a firework of gunpowder, played off on purpose to 
render this darkness visible, the foam of the cataract is illu- 
minated even down to the surface of the water in the abyss, 
and the rays, emitted by the livid blaze of this preparation, 
are reflected along the dripping walls of the cavern, till they 
are lost in the darker regions above, you will not wonder that 
such a scene should seize on my whole soul, and fill me with 
awe and astonishment, causing me to exclaim, as I involun- 


tarily did, “ Marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty !” 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 281 


LESSON CXXXII. 


AGAINST THE INVASION OF CANADA. 


Extract from the Speech of Mr. Gaston, of North Carolina, upon the Loan 
Bill, delivered in the House of Representatives, February 17, 1814. 


1. Mr. Cuainman,—There is something in the character 
of a war made upon the people of a country to force them to 
abandon a government which they cherish, and to become the 
subjects or the associates of the invaders, which necessarily 
involves calamities beyond those incident to ordinary wars. 
Among us some remain who remember the horrours of the 
invasion of the Revolution, “ and others of us have hung with 
reverence on the lips of narrative old age, as it related the in- 
teresting tale.” 

2. Such a war is not a contest between those only who 
seek for renown in military achievements, or the more humble 
mercenaries “ whose business ’tis to die.” It breaks in upon 
all the charities of domestick life, and interrupts all the pur- 
suits of industry. ‘The peasant quits his plough, and the me- 
chanick is hurried from his shop, to commence, without ap- 
prenticeship, the exercise of the trade of death. 

3. The irregularity of the resistance which is opposed to 
the invader, its occasional obstinacy and occasional intermis- 
sion, provoking every bad passion of his soldiery, is the excuse 
for plunder, lust, and cruelty. These atrocities exasperate 
the sufferers to revenge ; and every weapon which anger can 
supply, and every device which ingenious hatred can con- 
ceive, is used to inflict vengeance on the detested foe. 

4. But there is yet a more horrible war than this. As 
there is no anger so deadly as the anger of a friend, there is 
no war so ferocious as that which is waged between men of 
the same blood, and formerly connected by the closest ties of 
affection. The pen of the historian confesses its inability to 
describe, the fervid fancy of the poet cannot realize, the hor- 
rours of a civil war. The invasion of Canada involves the 
miseries of both these species of war. 


282 - NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


5. You carry fire and sword among a people who are 
‘united against you to aman;” among a people who are 
happy in themselves, and satisfied with their condition ; who 
view you not as coming to emancipate them from thraldom, 
but to reduce them to a foreign yoke. 

6. A people long and intimately connected with the bor- 
dering inhabitants of our country by commercial intercourse, 
by the ties of hospitality, and by the bonds of affinity and 
blood; a people, as to every social and individual relation, 
long identified with your own. It must be that such a war 
will rouse the spirit of sanguinary ferocity, that will overleap 
every holy barrier of nature and venerable usage of civili- 
zation. 

7. Already has “ the bayonet of the brother been actually 
opposed to the breast of the brother.” Merciful heaven! 
that those who have been rocked in the same cradle by the 
same maternal hand, who have imbibed the first genial nour- 
ishment of infant existence from the same blessed source, 
should be forced to contend in impious strife for the destruc- 
tion of that being derived from their common parents. Every 
feeling of our nature cries aloud against it. 

_8. Before we enter, Mr. Chairman, upon this career of 
cold-blooded massacre, it behooves us, by every obligation 
which we owe to God, to our fellow-men, and to ourselves, to 
be certain that the right is with us, or that the duty is impera- 
tive. Think for a moment, sir, on the consequences, True 
courage shuts not its eyes upon danger or itsresult. It views 
it steadily and calmly. 

9. Already this Canadian war has a character sufficiently 
cruel. Your part of it may, perhaps, be ably sustained ; 
your way through the Canadas may be traced afar off by the 
smoke of their burning villages; your path may be marked 
by the blood of their furious peasantry ; you may render your 
eourse audible by the frantick shrieks of their women and 
children. But your own sacred soil will also be the scene of 
this drama of fiends. Your exposed and defenceless sea- 
board, the seaboard of the South, will invite a terrible ven- 
geance. 

10. An intestine foe, too, may be roused to assassination 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 283 


and brutality. Yes, sir, a foe that will be found everywhere, 
in our fields, in our kitchens, and in our chambers ; a foe, ig- 
norant, degraded by habits of servitude, uncurbed by moral 
restraints ; a foe, whom no recollections of former kindness 
will soften, and whom the remembrance of severity will goad 
to phrensy ; a foe, from whom nor age, nor infancy, nor 
beauty, will find reverence or pity. Yes, such a foe may be 
added to fill up the measure of our calamities. 

11. Reflect, then, well, I conjure you, before reflection is 
too late; let not passion or prejudice dictate the decision ; if 
erroneous, its reversal may be decreed by a nation’s miseries, 
and by the world’s abhorrence. 


LESSON CXXXIII. 
Northern Spring.—Mks, Hemans. 


1. WueEn the soft breath of Spring goes forth 
Far o’er the mountains of the North, 
How soon those wastes of dazzling snow 
With life, and bloom, and beauty glow. 

2. Then bursts the verdure of the plains, 
Then break the streams from icy chains ; 
And the glad raindeer seeks no more 
Amidst deep snows his mossy store. 

3. Then the dark pine-wood’s boughs are seen 
Arrayed in teints of living green ; 

And roses, in their brightest dies, 
By Lapland’s founts and lakes arise. 

4. Thus, in a moment, from the gloom 
And the cold fetters of the tomb, 

Thus shall the blest Redeemer’s voice 
Call forth his servants to rejoice. 

5. For He, whose word is truth, hath said, 
His power to life shall wake the dead, 
And summon those he loves, on high, 

To “put on immortality !” 


284 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


6. Then, all its transient sufferings o’er, 
On wings of light the soul shall soar, 
Exulting, to that blest abode, 

Where tears of sorrow never flowed. 


LESSON CXXXIYV. 
The Necessity and Use of Observing.—Roxsert Mupie. 


1. So natural is observation to us, that we in common lan- 
guage allude to it in cases where there is really nothing to 
observe. When we are perplexed and in difficulty about the 
absent or the future, and take counsel together in order that, 
by our union we may overcome the difficulty, our words of 
mutual encouragement are, “ Let us see ;” and when we have 
exercised our thoughts rightly, and the difficulty is overcome 
to our mind, our expression of triumph is, “* Now we see our 
way.” 

2. Also, whenever we fail in that which we attempt, or err 
in the performance of it, the cause of the failure or the errour 
is, that “ We do not see our way.” ‘To see our way, and to 
see it clearly, ought therefore, in all matters, to be our very first 
object. Indeed, the only difference between the ignorant and 
the intelligent is, that the former grope,.as it were, in the dark, 
and the latter see the end of matters, as if the road were 
open and straight, and the noonday sun shining upon it. 

3. This seeing with the mind, this light of the understand- 
ing, is far more valuable to us than the common light of day. 
It is our own, a light within us, nothing can cloud it; dark- 
ness itself cannot hide it, if it be once kindled in the proper 
manner, and to the proper extent. 

4. But though its illuminating influence be within, we must 
at first light it up from without; and though it be the candle 
of the mind, it can only be lighted by knowledge obtained 
through the medium of those senses with which our all-boun- 
tiful Creator has furnished us. 

5. The exercise of those senses is OBSERVATION ; and that 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 285 


is the fountain of all knowledge, and the original source of 
all pleasure, whether that which we immediately know or enjoy 
be or be not present to the senses. What we thus obtain is 
inalienably vested in us for the whole period of our lives. 

6. That which we have in our coffers may decay through 
time, or be destroyed by accident; or it may be taken from 
us, or we from it; and that which is told to us by others may 
be false, or we may forget it because of the weakness of the 
impression that it made; but that which we see with our own 
eyes, or otherwise perceive with our own senses, is proof 
against accidents, against time, and against forgetfulness. 

7. In the case of old people, even after their powers of ob- 
servation are decayed, and when themselves are, as we would 
say, in their dotage, we find that they enjoy themselves and 
are happy in the memory of their young years. Not only 
so; but when, insensible, as it were, to the present, they 
glance back for pleasure to the days that they have lived, the 
earlier in life the occurrence is, they remember it the better. 

8. And past events, and past objects, get more shadowy, 
not as they are more remote, as is the case with views in 
" space, but as they are nearer to the present time. The man 
of fourscore may forget that he was a man of threescore and 
ten; but he never forgets that he was a boy ; and one of the 
reasons why very old people are so fond of the society of 
children is, that the recollections of age, and even manhood, 
are comparatively faint on their memories, and they actually 
remember, and think, and enjoy themselves as children, after 
they cease to find pleasure as men. 


LESSON CXXXYV. 


Thunder-Storm among the Alps.—Byron. 


1. Ir is the hush of night; and all between 
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 
Save darkened Jura, whose capped heights appear 
Precipitously steep ; and drawing near, 


286 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, | 
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood ; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more ; 


2. He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life aa infancy, and sings his fill ! 
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the hill, 
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
All silently their tears of love instil, 
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
Deep into Nature’s breast the spirit of her hues. 


3. The sky is changed! and such a change! O night, 

And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong ! 
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among 
Leaps the live thunder! not from one lone cloud; 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 

Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 


4. And this is in the night: Most glorious night! 

Thou wert not sent for slumber! Let me be 

A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, 

A portion of the tempest and of thee! 

How the lit lake shines! a phosphorick sea! 

And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! 

And now again ’tis black, and now, the glee 

Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 
As if they did rejoice o’er a young earthquake’s birth. 


5. Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between 
Heights, which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, 
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted ! 
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 287 


Love was the very root of the fond rage 
Which blighted their life’s bloom, and then departed ! 
Itself expired, but leaving them an age . 

Of years, all winters! war within themselves to wage ! 


6. Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, 
The mightiest of the storms hath taken his stand : 
For here, not one, but. many, make their play, 
And fling their thunderboits from hand to hand, 
Flashing and cast around! ofall the band, 
The brightest through these parted hills hath forked 
His lightnings, as if he did understand, 
That in such gaps as desolation worked, 

. There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked. 


LESSON CXXXVI. 


American Ancestry.—Grorcr P. Morris. 


tae 
Extract from a letter written at Saratoga Springs, July, 1833. 


1, Tuart “no American should wish to trace his ancestry 
farther back than the revolutionary war,” is a good sentiment. 
I admire and will stand by it. Yet, while [ disapprove most 
heartily of the conceited airs and flimsy pretensions which 
certain little people arrogate to themselves on account of their 
birthright, I cannot subscribe to one particle of the cant I am in 
the habit of hearing expressed on these subjects. 

2. It is not “ the same thing,” to me at least, whether my 
father was a count or a coal-heaver, a prince or a pickpocket. 
I would have all my relations, past, present, and to come, good 
and respectable people, and should prefer the blood of the 
Howards to that of the convicts of Botany-bay; nor do I be- 
lieve I am at all singular in these particulars. It is nothing 
more than a natural feeling. 

3. Still I would think no ill of a man on account of any 
misfortune that may have attended his birth, nor well of aman 
simply because he happened to be cradled in the lap of afflu- 


288 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


ence and power. The first may be one of nature’s noblemen, 
and the other a poor creature, notwithstanding all his splen- 
dour; and that this frequently happens, every day’s experience 
affords us abundant testimony. 

4. That the claims of all to distinction should rest upon 
‘their own individual talents, deportment, and character, is also 
sound doctrine, and cannot be disputed: yet this is no reason 
why we should not have an honest and becoming pride in the 
genius, integrity, or gallant bearing of those from whom we 
sprung. 

5. Now, yonder stands a gentleman,* who, in my humble 
judgement, cannot but indulge a secret glow of satisfaction, 
while contemplating the roots of his family tree. He came 
from a good stock, the old Dutch settlers of New Amster- 
dam, than which no blood that flows in the human veins is 
either purer, better, or braver. 

6. His forefathers were eminently conspicuous as Chris- 
tians, soldiers, and sages; they occupied the high places of 
honour and authority, were the ornaments of their day and 
generation, and, notwithstanding the shade of ridicule which a 
popular writert has cast around and interwoven with their his- 
tory, their memories will ever be cherished until virtue ceases 
to be an attribute of the human mind. 

7. The publick spirit of this gentleman and _ his liberal 
views have long been the theme of universal praise ; and al- 
though I do not enjoy the privilege of his personal acquaint- 
ance, I know he must be a gentleman ; the mild and. benig- 
nant expression of his face, his unassuming habits, his 
bland and courteous demeanour, all bespeak it; and, to use 
the language of Queen Elizabeth, are unto him “letters of 
recommendation throughout the world.” 


* Mr. Stuyvesant, the descendant of the former Governour 
of New York. 
{ Washington Irving. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 289 


LESSON CXXXVII. 
Eulogy on the Life and Character of Lafayette. 


Extract from an Oration on the Life and Character of Gilbert Motier de 
Lafayette, delivered at the request of both Houses of the Congress of the 
United States, before them, in the House of Representatives at Washing- 
ton, on the 31st of December, 1834.—By JoHn Quincy ADAmMs. 

1. In Spain, in Portugal, in Italy, and, above all, in Poland, 
the cause of liberty has been struggling against the hand of 
power, and to the last hour of his life, they found in Lafayette 
a never-failing friend and patron. 

2. In his last illness, the standing which he held in the 
hearts of mankind was attested by the formal resolution of the 
House of Deputies, met to make inquiries concerning his con- 
dition ; and, dying, as he did, full of years and of glory, never 
in the history of mankind has a private individual departed 
more universally lamented by the whole generation of men 
- whom he has left behind. 

3. Such, legislators of the North American Confederate 
Union, was the life of Gilbert Motier de Lafayette, and the 
record of his life is the delineation of his character. Consider 
him as one human being of one thousand millions, his contem- 
poraries on the surface of the terraqueous globe. Among 
that thousand millions seek for an object of comparison with 
him; assume for the standard of comparison all the virtues 
whieh exalt the character of man above that of the brute cre- 
ation; take the ideal man, little lower than the angels; mark 
the qualities of the mind and heart which entitle him to this 
station of pre-eminence in the scale of created beings, and 
inquire who that lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centu- 
ries of the Christian era, combined in himself so many of 
those qualities, so little alloyed with those which belong to that 
earthly vesture of decay in which the immortal spirit is en- 
closed, as Lafayette. 

4. Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you 
have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to which 

N 


290 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of 
Napoleon; class him among the men who, to compare and 
seat themselves, must take in the compass of all ages; turn 
back your eyes upon the records of time ; summon from the 
creation of the world to this day the mighty dead of every age 
and every clime; and where, among the race of merely mor- 
tal men, shall one be found, who, as the benefactor of his kind, 
shall claim to take precedence of Lafayette! 

5. There have doubtless been, in all ages, men, whose dis- 
coveries or inventions, in the world of matter or of mind, have 
opened new avenues to the dominion of man over the material 
creation; have increased his means or his faculties of enjoy- 
ment; have raised him in nearer approximation to that higher 
and happier condition, the object of his hopes and aspirations 
in his present state of existence. 

6. Lafayette discovered no new principle of politicks or of 
morals. He invented nothing in science. He disclosed no 
new phenomenon in the laws of nature. Born and educated 
in the highest order of feudal nobility, under the most absolute 
monarchy of Europe, in possession of an affluent fortune, and 
master of himself and of all his capabilities at the moment of 
attaining manhood, the principle of republican justice and of 
social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by 
inspiration from above. 

7. He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary 
honours, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the 
cause of liberty. He came to another hemisphere to defend 
her. He became one of the most effective champions of our 
independence ; but, that once achieved, he returned to his own 
country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies 
which have divided us. 

8. In the events of our revolution, and in the forms of pol- 
icy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetu- 
ation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form 
of government. He wished toadd nothing to it. He would 
gladly have abstracted nothing from it. Instead of the imagin- 
ary republick of Plato, or the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, 
he took a practical existing model, in actual operation here, 
and never attempted or wished more than to apply it faithfully 
to his own country. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 291 


9. It was not given to Moses to enter the promised land ; 
but he saw it from the summit of Pisgah. It was not given 
to Lafayette to witness the consummation of his wishes in the 
establishment of a republick, and the extinction of all heredi- 
tary rule in France. His principles were in advance of the age 
and hemisphere in which he lived. A Bourbon still reigns on 
the throne of France, and it is not for us to scrutinize the title 
by which he reigns. 

10. The principles of elective and hereditary power, blended 
in reluctant union in his person, like the red and white roses 
of York and Lancaster, may postpone to aftertime the last 
conflict to which they must ultimately come. -The life of the 
patriarch was not long enough for the developement of his 
whole political system. Its final accomplishment is in the 
womb of time. 

11. The anticipation of this event is the more certain, from 
the consideration that all the principles for which Lafayette 
contended were practical. He never indulged himself in wild 
and fanciful speculations. The principle of hereditary power 
was, in his opinion, the bane of all republican liberty in Europe. 
‘Unable to extinguish it in the revolution of 1830, so far as 
concerned the chief magistracy of the nation, Lafayette had 
the satisfaction of seeing it abolished with reference to the 
peerage. 

12. An hereditary crown, stripped of the support which it 
may derive from an hereditary peerage, however compatible 
with Asiatick despotism, is an anomaly in the history of the 
Christian world, and in the theory of free government. There 
is no argument producible against the existence of an heredi- 
tary peerage, but applies with aggravated weight against the 
transmission from sire to son of an hereditary crown. ‘The 
prejudices and passions of the people of France rejected the 
principle of inherited power, in every station of publick trust, 
excepting the first and highest of them all; but there they 
clung to it, as did the Israelites of old to the savoury deities 
of Egypt. 

13. This is not the time or the place for a disquisition upon 
the comparative merits, as a system of government, of a re- 
publick, anda monarchy surrounded by republican institutions. 


292 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Upon this subject there is among us no diversity of opinion ; 
and if it should take the people of France another half century 
of internal and external war, of dazzling and delusive glories, 
of unparalleled triumphs, humiliating reverses, and bitter dis- 
appointments, to settle it to their satisfaction, the ultimate result 
can only bring them to the point where we have stood from 
the day of the declaration of independence; to the point where 
Lafayette would have brought them, and to which he looked 
as a consummation devoutly to be wished. 

14. Then, too, and then only, will be the time when the 
character of Lafayette will be appreciated at its true value 
throughout the civilized world. When the principle of hered- 
itary dominion shall be extinguished in all the institutions of 
France ; when government shall no longer be considered as 
property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust commit- 
ted for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence 
it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as 
a reward to be abused; when a claim, any claim to political 
power by inheritance shall, in the estimation of the whole 
French people, be held as it now is by the whole people of the 
North American Union ; 

15. Then will be the time for contemplating the character 
of Lafayette, not merely in the events of: his life, but in the full 
developement of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent 
aspirations, of the labours, and perils, and sacrifices of his 
long and eventful career upon earth; and thenceforward, till 
the hour when the trump of the Archangel shall sound to an- 
nounce that Time shall be no more, the name of Lafayette 
shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race, high on the 
list of tbe pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 293 


LESSON CXXXVIII. 


Parrhdsius.—Wu..1s. 


“ Parrhasius, a painter of Athens, among those Olynthian captives Philip 
of Macedon brought home to sell, bought one very old man; and, when 
he had him at his house, put him to death with extreme torture and tor- 
ment, the better, by his example, to express the pains and passivns of his 
Prometheus, whom he was then about to paint.” 


1. Parruasius stood, gazing forgetfully 
Upon his canvass. There Prometheus lay, 
Chained to the cold rocks of Mount Caucasus, 
The vulture at his vitals, and the links 
Of the lame Lemnian festering in his flesh ; 
And, as the painter’s mind felt through the dim, 
Rapt mystery, and plucked the shadows wild 
Forth with its reaching fancy, and with form 
And colour clad them, his fine, earnest eye 
Flashed with a passionate fire, and the quick curl 
Of his thin nostril, and his quivering lip, 
Were like the winged god’s, breathing from his flight. 
a; “ Bring me the captive now! 
~My hand feels skilful, and the shadows lift 
From my waked spirit airily and swift ; 
And I could paint the bow 
Upon the bended heavens, around me play 
Colours of such divinity to-day. 


3. * Ha! bind him on his back! 
Look! as Prometheus in my picture here ; 
Quick, or he faints! stand with the cordial near! 
Now, bend him to the rack ! 
Press down the poisoned links into his flesh! 
And tear agape that healing wound afresh ! 


4. «¢ So, let him writhe! How long 
Will he live thus? Quick, my good pencil, now! 
What a fine agony works upon his brow! 
Ha! grayhaired, and so strong ! 


294 


7. 


10. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


How fearfully he stifles that short moan! 
Gods! if I could but paint a dying groan! 


“ Pity thee! SoIdo! 
I pity the dumb victim at the altar, 
But does the robed priest for his pity falter ? 
I’d rack thee, though I knew é 
A thousand lives were perishing in thine ; 
What were ten thousand to a fame like mine? 


“* Ah! there’s a deathless name! 
A spirit that the smothering vault shall spurn, 
And. like a steadfast planet, mount and burn ; 
And though its crown of flame 
Consumed my brain to ashes as it won me ; 
By all the fiery stars! I’d pluck it on me! 
“¢ Ay, though it bid me rifle 
My heart’s last fount for its insatiate thirst, 
Though every life-strung nerve be maddened first ; 
Though it should bid me stifle 
The yearning in my throat for my sweet child, 
And taunt its mother till my brain went wild; 
« All, I would do it all, 
Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot; 
Thrust foully in the earth to be forgot. 
O heavens! but I appal 
Your heart, old man! forgive, ha! on your lives 
Let him not faint! rack him till he revives! 
“¢ Vain, vain, give o’er. His eye 
Glazes apace. He does not feel you now; 
Stand back! [ll paint the death-dew on his brow! 
Gods! if he do not die 
But for orie moment, one, till I eclipse 
Conception with the scorn of those calm lips! 
“ Shivering ! Hark! he mutters 
Brokenly now ; that was a difficult breath ; 
Another? Wilt thou never come, oh, Deatll’t f 
Kook ! how his temple flutters ! 
Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head ! 
He shudders, gasps, Jove help him, so, he’s dead.” 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 295 


11. How like a mountain devil in the heart 
Rules the unreined ambition! Let it once 
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow 
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought 
And unthrones peace for ever. Putting on 
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns 
The heart to ashes, and with not a spring 
Left in the desert for the spirit’s lip, 

We look upon our splendour and forget 
The thirst of which we perish! 


LESSON CXXXIX. 
Moral Sublimity Illustrated. — Wavy anv. 


1. Puttosopuers have speculated much concerning a pro- 
cess of sensation which has commonly been denominated the 
emotion of sublimity. Aware that, like any other simple feel- 
ing, it must be incapable of definition, they have seldom at- 
tempted to define it; but, content with remarking the occa- 
sions on which it is excited, have told us that it arises, in gen- 
eral, from the contemplation of whatever is vast in nature, 
splendid in intellect, or lofty in morals. 

2. Or, to express the same idea somewhat varied, in the 
language of a critick of antiquity,* “that alone is truly sub- 
lime, of which the conception is vast, the effect irresistible, 
and the remembrance scarcely if ever to be erased.” 

3. But although philosophers only have written about this 
emotion, they are far from being the only men who have felt 
it. The untutored peasant, when he has seen the autumnal 
tempest collecting between the hills, and, as it advanced, en- 
veloping in misty obscurity village and hamlet, forest and 
meadow, has tasted the sublime in all its reality; and, while 
the thunder has rolled and the lightning flashed around him, has 
exulted in the view of nature moving forth in her majesty. 


* Longinus, Sec. VIL. 


296 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


4. The untaught sailor-boy, listlessly hearkening to the idle 
ripple of the midnight wave, when on a sudden he has thought 
upon the unfathomable abyss beneath him, and the wide waste 
of waters around him, and the infinite expanse above him, has 
énjoyed to the full the emotion of sublimity, while his inmost 
soul has trembled at the vastness of its own conceptions. But 
why need I multiply illustrations from nature? Who does not 
remember the emotion he has felt, while surveying aught, in the 
material world, of terrour or of vastness ? 

5. And this sensation is not produced by grandeur in mate- 
rial objects alone. It is also excited on most of those occa- 
sions in which we see man tasking, to the uttermost, the ener- 
gies of his intellectual or moral nature. Through the long 
lapse of centuries, who, without emotion, has read of Lronipas 
and his three hundred’s throwing themselves as a barrier before 
the myriads of Xerxes, and contending unto death for the lib- 
erties of Greece! 

6. But we need not turn to classick story to find all that is 
great in human action; we find it in our own times and in the 
history of our own country. Whois there of us that ever in 
the nursery has not felt his spirit stir within him, when with 
childlike wonder he has listened to the story of WasHINGToN? 
And although the terms of the narrative were scarcely intelli- 
gible, yet the young soul kindled at the thought of one man’s 
working out the deliverance of a nation. And as our under- 
standing, strengthened by age, was at last able to grasp the 
detail of this transaction, we saw that our infantile conceptions 
had fallen far short of its grandeur. 

7. O! if an American citizen ever exults in the contempla- 
tion of all that is sublime in human enterprise, it is when, 
bringing to mind the men who first conceived the idea of this 
nation’s independence, he beholds them estimating the power 
of her oppressor, the resources of her citizens, deciding in their 
collected might that this nation should be free, and through the 
long years of trial that ensued, never blenching from thei 
purpose, but freely redeeming the pledge which they had given. 
to consecrate to it ‘their lives, their fortunes, and their sa 
cred honour.” 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 297 


8. * Patriots have toiled, and in their country’s cause 
Bled nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve, 
Receive proud recompense. We give in charge 
Their names to the sweet lyre. The historick muse, 
Proud of her treasure, marches with it down 
To latest times ; and sculpture in her turn 
Gives bond, in stone and ever-during brass, 

To guard them and immortalize her trust.” 


9. It is not in the field of patriotism only that deeds have 
been achieved to which history has awarded the palm of moral 
sublimity. ‘There have lived men, in whom the name of pa- 
triot has been merged in that of philanthropist ; who, looking 
with an eye of compassion over the face of the earth, have 
felt for the miseries of our race, and have put forth their calm 
might to wipe off one blot from the marred and stained 
escutcheon of human nature; to strike off one form of suf- 
fering from the catalogue of human wo. Such a man was 
Howarp. Surveying our world, like a spirit of the blessed, 
he beheld the misery of the captive, he heard the groaning of 
the prisoner. His determination was fixed. 

10. He resolved, single-handed, to gauge and to measure 
one form of unpitied, unheeded wretchedness, and, bringing it 
out to the sunshine of publick observation, to work its utter 
extermination. And he well knew what this undertaking 
would cost him. He knew what he had to hazard from the 
infection of dungeons, to endure from the fatigues of inhos- 
pitable travel, and to brook from the insolence of legalized 
oppression. 

11. He knew that he was devoting himself upon the altar 
of philanthropy, and he willingly devoted himself. He had 
marked out his destiny, and he hastened forward to its accom- 
plishment with an intensity “ which the nature of the human 
mind forbade to be more, and the character of the individual 
forbade to be less.”* Thus he commenced a new era in the 
history of benevolence. And hence the name of Howarp 
will be associated with all that is sublime in mercy, until the 
final consummation of all things. 


* Foster’s Essay. 
N 3 


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LESSON CXL. 
Early Genius.—Wittiam Leceett. 


1. Ir has often been remarked of those who give very early 
manifestations of genius, that they fall into early decay ; and, 
like the first flowers of spring, that they bloom but a little 
while, before they are withered by the frosts of disappoint- 
ment, or beaten to the earth by the storms of misfortune. 

2. Shakspeare, the confidant of nature, has evinced his 
knowledge of this fact, in that line of Richard, where the 
tyrant is made to mutter, “So wise, so young, they say 
do ne’er live long ;” and an accurate observer, much older 
than he, Sophocles, a Greek writer, has remarked that mis- 
chances always attend on early genius. 

3. The mind, indeed, in this respect. may be compared to 
the earth: late springs produce from both the most abundant 
harvests; and in both, the seeds which germinate into premature 
fecundity, being exposed to winds and frosts while the principle 
of life is weak within them, but seldom arrive at a strong and 
healthful state of existence. ; 

4. Yet it may reasonably be doubted, notwithstanding the 
number of instances of untimely death which has befallen 
those who became early celebrated for their genius, whether 
the precocious ripening of the faculties of the mind neces- 
sarily presage brevity of life, or whether, in the cases that 
could be mentioned, the fatality has not been the result of an 
ardour of application to scholastick pursuits, too severe and un- 
remitted for the body to sustain. 

5. The beautiful lines addressed by Lord Byron to the 
memory of Kirke White, might be applied, it is to be feared, 
with equal justice to many a promising genius, who, with sui- 
cidal sedulousness, wastes his life in the silence of midnight 
research, and fails to attain the goal of his wishes, by setting 
out with a rapidity that cannot be maintained. 

6. But the number of those who have sunk into untimely 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 299 


graves after exhibiting precocious evidences of intellectual 
vigour, bears no proportion to the many who continue to live 
undistinguished from the mass of their fellow men; of those 
who, in their outset, having shown off a few mental boundings 
and curvettings, which denoted speed and agility, slacken, for 
the rest of their journey, into the ordinary pace of ordinary 
minds. 

7. It is too often the case that the applause which is be- 
stowed on the efforts of juvenile intellect, diminishes. that 
diligence by which alone applause can continue to be de- 
served; and that he who has performed more than was ex- 
pected, will be induced to pause and banquet on the honour 
thus acquired, until he is passed on the road, by the steady 
perseverance of slower understandings. 

8. They whom facility of acquisition renders confident of 
their abilities, naturally fall into negligence, thinking that they 
can at any time atone, by the rapidity of their progress, for 
the length and frequency of their delays. But it is easier to 
relax from industry to idleness, than to return from sloth to 
activity; and when attention has been lulled by flattery, or 
dissipated by pleasure, it is difficult to renew its energies, 
collect again the stores of thought which have been scattered, 
and awaken curiosity from its trance, to re-engage in literary 
pursuits. 

9. Permanent applause is the reward of unconditional 
greatness ; but that praise which is bestowed on early genius 
has reference to the circumstances by which it is surrounded, 
and will net be continued, unless its efforts increase with its 
years. Continual assiduity is necessary to continual excel- 
lence ; fame, like fortune, must be vigorously pursued ; but 
he who pauses in his career to snatch her wreath, will find it 
turn, like fairy money, to dust and rubbish in his grasp. 


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LESSON CXLI. 
Graves of the Patriots. —Percivat. 


1. Here rest the great and good; here they repose 
After their generous toil. A sacred band, 

They take their sleep together, while the year 
Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves, 
And gathers them again, as Winter frowns. 
Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre ; green sods 

Are all their monument; and yet it tells 

A nobler history than pillared piles, 

Or the eternal pyramids. 

2. They need 
No statue or inscription to reveal 
Their greatness. It is round them; and the joy 
With which their children tread the hallowed ground 
That holds their venerated bones, the peace 
That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth 
That clothes the land they rescued; these, though mute, 
As feeling ever is when deepest; these 
Are monuments more lasting than the fanes 
Reared to the kings and demi-gods of old. 

3. Touch not the ancient elms, that bend their shade 
Over their lowly graves; beneath their boughs 
There is a solemn darkness, even at noon, 

Suited to such as visit at the shrine 

Of serious Liberty. No factious voice 7 
Called them unto the field of generous fame, 
But the pure consecrated love of home. 

4. No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes 
In all its greatness. It has told itself 
To the astonished gaze of awe-struck kings, 

At Marathon, at Bannockburn, and here, 

Where first our patriots sent the invader back 
Broken and cowed. Let these green elms be all 
To tell us where they fought, and where they lie. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 301 


5. Their feelings were all nature, and they need 
No art to make them known. They live in us, 
While we are like them, simple, hardy, bold, 
Worshipping nothing but our own pure hearts, 
And the one universal Lord. They need 
No column, pointing to the heaven they sought, 
To tell us of their home. The heart itself, 
Left to its own free purpose, hastens there, 
And there alone reposes. 

6. Let these elms 
Bend their protecting shadow o’er their graves, 
And build, with their green roof, the only fane 
Where we may gather on the hallowed day, 
That rose to them in blood, and set in glory. 
Here let us meet, and, while our motionless lips 
Give not a sound, and all around is mute 
In the deep sabbath of a heart too full 
For words or tears, here let us strew the sod 
With the first flowers of spring, and make to them 
An offering of the plenty Nature gives, 

And they have rendered ours, perpetually. 


LESSON CXLII. 


Reflections on the Death of Adams and Jefferson.— 


SERGEANT. 


1. Time in its course has produced a striking epoch in the 
history of our favoured country; and, as if to mark with pe- 
culiar emphasis this interesting stage of our national existence, 
it comes to us accompanied with incidents calculated to make 
a powerful and lasting impression. The dawn of the fiftieth 
anniversary of independence beamed upon two venerable and 
illustrious citizens, to whom, under Providence, a nation ac- 
knowledged itself greatly indebted for the event which the day 
was set apart to commemorate. 


3802 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


2. The one was the author, the other was “the ablest ad- 
vocate,” of that solemn assertion of nght, that heroick defiance 
of unjust power, which, in the midst of difficulty and danger, 
proclaimed the determination to assume a separate and equal 
station among the powers of the earth, and declared to the 
world the causes which impelled to this decision. Both had 
stood by their country with unabated ardour and unwavering 
fortitude, through every vicissitude of her fortune, until the 
“ olorious day” of her final triumph crowned their labours and 
their sacrifices. with complete success. 

3. With equal solicitude, and with equal warmth of patri- 
otick affection, they devoted their great faculties, which had 
been employed in vindicating the rights of their country, to 
construct for her, upon deep and strong foundations, the solid 
edifice of social order, and of civil and religious freedom. 
They had both held the highest publick employment, and 
were distinguished by the highest honours the nation could 
confer. 

4. Arrived at an age when nature seems to demand re- 
pose, each had retired to the spot from which the publick ex- 
igencies had first called him, his publick labours ended, his 
work accomplished, his country prosperous and happy, there 
to indulge in the blessed retrospect of a wellspent life, and 
await that period which comes to all; but not to await it in 
idleness or indifference. The same spirit of active benevo- 
lence which made the meridian of their lives resplendent 
with glory, continued to shed its lustre upon their evening 
path. , 

5. Still intent upon doing good, still devoted to the great 
cause of human happiness and improvement, neither of these 
illustrious men relaxed in his exertions. They seemed only 
to concentrate their energy, as age and increasing infirmity 
contracted the circle of action, bestowing, without ostentation, 
their latest efforts upon the state and neighbourhood in which 
they resided. 

6. There, with patriarchal simplicity, they lived, the objects 
of a nation’s grateful remembrance and affection ; the living 
records of a nation’s history ; the charm of an age which they 
delighted, adorned. and instructed by their vivid sketches of 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 303 


times that are past ; and, as it were, the imbodied spirit of the 
revolution itself, in all its purity and force, diffusing its whole- 
some influence through the generations that have succeeded, 
rebuking every sinister design, and invigorating every manly 
and virtuous resolution. 

7. The Jubilee came, the great national commemoration 
of a nation’s birth, the fiftieth year of deliverance from a 
foreign rule, wrought out by exertions, and sufferings, and 
sacrifices of the patriots of the revolution. It found these 
illustrious ‘and venerable men full of honours and full of years, 
animated with the proud recollection of the times in which 
they had borne so distinguished a part, and cheered by the 
beneficent and expanding influence of their patriotick la- 
bours. 

8. The eyes of a nation were turned towards them with 
affection and reverence. They heard the first song of tri- 
umph on that memorable day. As the voice of millions of 
freemen rose in gratitude and joy; they both sunk gently to 
rest, and their spirits departed in the midst se the swelling 
chorus of national enthusiasm. 

9. Death has thus placed his seal upon the ‘a8 of these 
two eminent men with impressive solemnity. A gracious 
Providence, whose favours have been so often manifested in 
mercy to our country, has been pleased to allow them an un- 
usual length of time, and an uncommon continuance of their 
extraordinary faculties. They have been, as it were, united 
in death; and they have both, in a most signal manner, been 
associated in the great event which they so largely contributed 
to produce. Henceforward the names of Jefferson and 
‘Adams can never be separated from the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

10. While that venerated instrument shall continue to exist, 
as long as its sacred spirit shall dwell with the people of this 
nation, or the free institutions that have grown out of it be pre« 
served and respected, so long will our children, and our chil- 
dren’s children, to the latest generation, bless the names of 
these our illustrious benefactors, and cherish their memory 
with reverential respect.” 

11. The Jubilee, at each return, will bring back with reno- 


304 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


vated force, the lives and the deaths of these distinguished 
men; and History, with the simple pencil of ‘Truth, sketching 
the wonderful coincidence, will, for once at least, set at de- 
fiance all the powers of poetry and romance. 


LESSON CXLIII.. 
Melancholy Decay of the Indians.—Cass. 


1. Nerrner the government ior people of the United States 
have any wish to conceal from themselves, nor from the world, 
that there is upon their frontiers a wretched, forlorn people, 
looking to them for support and protection, and possessing 
strong claims upon their justice and humanity. Those people 
received our forefathers in a spirit of friendship, aided them to 
endure privations and sufferings, and taught them how to pro- 
vide for many of the wants with which they were surrounded. 

2. The Indians were then strong, and we were weak ; and, 
without looking at the change which has occurred in any spirit 
of morbid affectation, but with the feelings of an age accus- 
tomed to observe great mutations in the fortunes of nations and 
of individuals, we may express our regret that they have lost 
so much of what we have gained. 

3. The prominent points of their history are before the 
world, and will go down unchanged to posterity. In the revo- 
lution of a few ages, this fair portion of the continent, which 
was theirs, has passed into our possession. The forests, 
which afforded them food and security, where were their cra- 
dles, their homes, and their graves, have disappeared, or are 
disappearing, before the progress of civilization. 

4, We have extinguished their council fires, and ploughed 
up the bones of-their fathers. Their population has dimin- 
ished with lamentable rapidity. _ Those tribes that remain, like 
the lone column of a falling temple, exhibit but the sad relicks 
of their former strength; and many others live only in the 
names, which have reached us through the earlier accounts of 
travellers and historians. 

5. The causes which have produced this physical desola- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 305 


tion are yet in constant and active operation, and threaten to 
leave us, at no distant day, without a living proof of Indian 
sufferings, from the Atlantick to the immense desert which 
sweeps along the base of the Rocky Mountains. Nor can 
we console ourselves with the reflection, that their physical 
condition has been counterbalanced by any melioration in their 
moral condition. 

6. We have taught them neither how to live nor how to 
die. They have been equally stationary in their manners, 
habits, and opinions; in every thing but their numbers and 
their happiness; and, although existing, for more than six 
generations, in contact with a civilized people, they owe to 
them no one valuable improvement in the arts, nor a single 
principle which can restrain their passions, or give hope to 
despondency, motive to exertion, or confidence to virtue. 

7. Efforts, however, have not been wanting to reclaim the 
Indians from their forlorn condition; but with what hopeless 
results, we have only to cast our eyes upon them to ascertain. 
Whether the cause of this failure must be sought in the prin- 
ciples of these efforts, or in their application, has not yet been 
satisfactorily determined ; but the important experiments which 
are now making, will probably, ere long, put the question at rest. 

8. During more than a century, great zeal was displayed by 
the French court, and by many of the dignified French ecclesi- 
asticks, for the conversion of the American aborigines in 
Canada; and learned, and pious, and zealous men devoted 
themselves, with noble ardour and intrepidity, to this generous 
work : at what immense personal sacrifices, we can never 
fully estimate. And it is melancholy to contrast their priva- 
tions and sufferings, living and dying, with the fleeting memo- 
rials of their labours. 

9. A few external ceremonies, affecting neither the head nor 
the heart, and which are retained like idle legends among some 
of the aged Indians, are all that remain to preserve the recol- 
lection of their spiritual fathers ; and I have stood upon the 
ruins of St. Ignace, on the shores of Lake Huron, their prin- 
cipal missionary establishment, indulging those melancholy 
reflections which must always press upon the mind, amidst 
the fallen monuments of human piety. 


306 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CXLIV. 
Conscious Guillt.—J. K. Pau.pine. 


1. Betreve it not, my mother, hope it not. 

The earth will whisper it where’er I tread ; 
Blood, blood will mark my footsteps as I walk, 
And every blade of grass I crush will bleed. 

2. The waves will murmur it where’er they roll 
Over the sands that hide the cruel deed ; 

The winds will howl it in the midnight gale ; 
The stars that see us now betray my crime 
With winking; and should all these omens fail, 
There is a witness here within against me. 

3. This brow of mine will bear the murderer’s mark, 
And this polluted heart beat of foul murder. 
What need of witnesses, when such as these 
Cry out against me? 


LESSON CXLYV. 


Extract from an Address to the People of Great Britain.— 
JOHN JAY. 


From the Delegates appointed by the several English Colonies of New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Planta- 
tions, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Lower 
Counties on the Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South 
Carolina, to consider their grievances in General Congress, at Philadel- 
phia, September 5th, 1774. 


1. Frrenps AND FELLow-suBsEcTs,—When a nation, led 
to greatness by the hand of liberty, and possessed of all the 
glory that heroism, munificence, and humanity can bestow, 
descends to the ungrateful task of forging chains for her friends 
and children ; and, instead of giving support to freedom, turns 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 307 


advocate for slavery and oppression, there is reason to suspect 
she has either ceased to be virtuous, or been extremely negli- 
gent in the appointment of her rulers. 

2. In almost every age, in repeated conflicts, in long and 
bloody wars, as well civil as foreign, against many and power- 
ful nations, against the open assaults of enemies and the more 
dangerous treachery of friends, have the inhabitants of your 
island, your great and glorious ancestors, maintained their in- 
dependence, and transmitted the rights of men and the bles- 
sings of liberty to you, their posterity. 

3. Be not surprised, therefore, that we, who are descended 
from the same common ancestors ; that we, whose forefathers 
participated in all the rights, the liberties, and the constitution 
you so justly boast of, and who have carefully conveyed the 
same fair inheritance to us, guarantied by the plighted faith of 
government, and the most solemn compacts with British sover- 
eigns, should refuse to surrender them to men who found 
their claims on no principles of reason, and who prosecute 
them with a design that, by having our lives and property in 
their power, they may with the greater facility enslave you. 

4. The cause of America is now the object of universal 
attention: it has at length become very serious. This un- 
happy country has not only been oppressed, but abused and 
misrepresented ; and the duty we owe to ourselves and pos- 
terity, to your interest, and the general welfare of the British 
empire, leads us to address you on this very important subject. 

5. Know, then, that we consider ourselves, and do insist 
that we are, and ought to be, as free as our fellow-subjects in 
Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our 
property from us without our consent. That we claim all the 
benefits secured to the subject by the English constitution, and 
particularly that inestimable one of trial by jury. 

6. ‘That we hold it essential to English liberty, that no man 
be condemned unheard, or punished for supposed offences, 
without having an opportunity of making his defence. That 
we think the legislature of Great Britain is not authorized by 
the constitution to establish a religion fraught with sanguinary 
and impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of government 
in any quarter of the globe. These rights we, as well as 


308 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


you, deem sacred. And yet, sacred as they are, they have, 
with many others, been repeatedly and flagrantly violated. 

7. Are not the proprietors of the soil of Great Britain lords 
of their own property? Can it be taken from them without 
their consent? Will they yield it to the arbitrary disposal 
of any man, or number of men whatever? You know they 
will not. 

8. Why then are the proprietors of the soil of America less 
lords of their property than you are of yours? Or why should 
they submit it to the disposal of your parliament, or any other 
parliament or council in the world, not of their election? Can 
the intervention of the sea that divides us cause dispanty in 
rights? or can any reason be given why English subjects, who 
live three thousand miles from the royal palace, should enjoy 
less liberty than those who are three hundred miles distant 
from it ? 

9. Reason looks with indignation on such distinctions, and 
freemen can never perceive their propriety. And yet, however 
chimerical and unjust such discriminations are, the parliament 
assert that they have a right to bind us in all cases without ex- 
ception, whether we consent or not; that they may take and 
use our property when and in what manner they please ; that 
we are pensioners on their bounty for all that we possess ; and 
can hold it no longer than they vouchsafe to permit. 

10. Such declarations we consider as heresies in English 
politicks, and which can no more operate to deprive us of our 
property, than the interdicts of the pope can divest kings of 
sceptres, which the laws-of the land and the voice of the 
people have placed in their hands. 


LESSON CXLVI. 


Written among the Hudson Highlands.—Gerorcr P, Morris. 


1. O wou p that she were here, 
These hills and dales among, 
Where vocal groves are gayly mocked 
By Echo’s airy tongue. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 309 


Where jocund Nature smiles 
In all her gay attire, 
Amid deep-tangled wiles 
Of hawthorn and sweetbrier. 
O would that she were here, 
That fair and gentle thing, 
Whose words are musical as strains 
Breathed by the wind-harp’s string. 


2. O would that she were here, 

Where the free waters leap, 

Shouting in their joyousness 
Adown the rocky steep. 

Where rosy Zephyr lingers 
All the livelong day, 

With health upon his pinions, 
And gladness in his way. 

O would that she were here, 
Sure Eden’s garden-plot 

Did not embrace more varied charms 
Than this romantick spot. 


3. O would that she were here, 
Where frolick by the hours, 
Rife with the song of bee and bird, 
The perfume of the flowers, 
Where beams of peace and love, 
And radiant beauty’s glow 
Are pictured in the sky above, 
And in the lake below. 
O would that she were here, 
The nymphs of this bright scene, 
With song, and dance, and revelry, 
Would crown Bianca queen, 


310 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CXLVII. 


The Enterprise of Columbus. —BancroFt’s History oF THE 
Unirep StaTeEs. 


1, Tue enterprise of Columbus, the most memorable mari- 
time enterprise in the history of the world, formed between 
Europe and America the communication which will never 
cease. The national pride of an Icelandick historian has in- 
deed claimed for his ancestors the glory of having discovered 
the western hemisphere. 

2. It is said, that they passed from their own island to 
Greenland, and were driven by adverse winds from Greenland 
to the shores of Labrador; that the voyage was often re- 
peated; that the coasts of America were extensively explored, 
and colonies established on the shores of Nova Scotia or, 
Newfoundland. 

3. It is even suggested, that these early adventurers an- 
chored near the harbour of Boston, or in the bays of New 
Jersey. But this belief rests only on a narrative, traditional 
in its form and obscure in its meaning, although of undoubted 
antiquity. 

4. The geographical details are so vague, that they cannot 
even sustain a conjecture; the accounts of the mildness of 
the winter and the fertility of nature in the climes which were 
visited, are, on any hypothesis, fictitious or exaggerated ; 
while the remark, which should define the length of the short- 
est winter’s day, has received interpretations to suit every lati- 
tude from New York to Cape Farewell. | The first discoveries 
in Greenland were in a high northern latitude ; Vinland was 
but another and more southern portion of the same extensive 
territory. 

5. Imagination had conceived the idea, that vast inhabited 
regions lay unexplored in the west; and poets had declared, 
that empires beyond the ocean would one day be revealed to 
the daring navigator. But Columbus deserves the undivided 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 311 


glory of having realized that belief. During his lifetime he 
met with no adequate recompense. 

6. The self-love of the Spanish monarch was offended at 
receiving from a foreigner in his employ benefits too vast for 
requital ; and the contemporaries of the great navigator per- 
secuted the merit which they could not adequately reward. 

7. Norhad posterity been mindful to gather into a finished 
picture the memorials of his career, till the genius of Irving, 
with candour, liberality, and original research, made a record 
of his eventful life, and-in mild but enduring colours sketched 
his sombre inflexibility of purpose, his deep religious enthu- 
siasm, and the disinterested magnanimity of his character. 

8. Columbus was a native of Genoa. The commerce of 
the middle ages, conducted chiefly upon the Mediterranean 
Sea, had enriched the Italian republicks, and had been chiefly 
engrossed by their citizens. The path for enterprise now lay 
across the ocean. 

9. The states which bordered upon the Atlantick, Spain, 
Portugal, and England, became competitors for the possession 
of the New World, and the control of the traffick which its 
discovery was to call into being; but the nation which, by 
long and successful experience, had become deservedly cele- 
brated for its skill in navigation, continued for a season to fur- 
nish the most able maritime commanders. Italians had the 
glory of making the discoveries, from which Italy derived no 
accessions of wealth or power. 


LESSON CXLVIII. 


Purity of the Bible.—Nationat PREaAcHER.— 
Dr. GarpINER SPRING. 


1. Wuewn you look into the Bible, you see holiness and 
purity its great characteristicks. It bears on every page 
“ Holiness to the Lord.” When it speaks of God it repre- 
sents him as the greatest and holiest Being in the universe, 
and extols his character as above all praise. When it speaks 
of man, it speaks of his primitive integrity with approbation, 


312 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


and of his subsequent apostacy and sinfulness, with pity and 
abhorrence. Everywhere it draws a discrimination between 
holiness and sin, between good men and bad, and in such a 
way as to leave the impression, that in the writer’s view, the 
difference is awfully wide, and the consequences of it ever- 
lasting. 

2. The precepts of the Bible are all holy. They begin by 
requiring holiness in the thoughts and affections ; then in the 
words ; then in the conduct. The Scriptures require nothing 
less than perfect holiness. Universal, uniform, persevering 
holiness alone will bear a comparison with this unerring stand- 
ard. ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” 
This is its first and great Commandment. 

3. You open the Bible, and you find yourself in the pres- 
ence of God. Him you are directed to worship in spirit and 
in truth; to exalt him above every rival; to enthrone him in 
your heart ; to give him all honour and praise; to delight in 
his character ; to be thankful for his mercies; to be submis- 
sive to his will; to rejoice in his government; to serve him 
with the whole heart, and to be assimilated to his moral image. 

4. And the second command is like unto the first: “ Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Here every grace 
and virtue is required, and every unamiable and unkind af- 
fection and action is forbidden. Every act of purity, jus- 
tice, honesty, and benevolence is required ; every act of im- 
purity, injustice, hatred, and selfishness is forbidden. Every 
thing that can render man honourable and useful is enjoined ; 
every thing that can render him mean, base, and injurious is 
forbidden. 

5. All that can diffuse peace and happiness in his own 
bosom and throughout the world is required ; all that can rob 
him of peace and joy within, and diffuse disaster and calamity 
without is forbidden. All that can assimilate a creature of 
yesterday to his Maker, and prepare him for the family and 
fellowship of angels is prescribed ; all that can render him 
deformed and odious, that can sever the bonds of moral union 
and fit him to be the companion of foul and miserable fiends, 
and the eternal outcast from God and holiness, is prohibited. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 313 


LESSON CXLIX. 


Burns.—F. G. HaLieck. 


To a Rose, brought from near regres Kirk, in Ayreshire, in the autumn 
of 1822. 


1. Witp Rose of Alloway! my thanks: 
Thou ’mindst me of that autumn noon 
When first we met upon “ the banks 
And braes o’ bonny Doon.” 

2. Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree’s bough, 
My sunny hour was glad and brief, 
We’ve crossed the winter sea, and thou 

Art withered, flower and leaf. 
3. And will not thy death-doom be mine, 
The doom of all things wrought of clay, 
And withered my life’s leaf like thine, 
Wild rose of Alloway ? . 
4. Not so his memory, for whose sake 
My bosom bore thee far and long, 
His, who an humbler flower could make 
Immortal as his song. 
5. The memory of Burns; a name 
That calls, when brimmed her festal cup, 
A nation’s glory, and her shame, 
In silent sadness up. 
6. A nation’s glory, be the rest 
Forgot; she’s canonized his mind ; 
And it is joy to speak the best 
We may of human kind. 
7. I’ve stood beside the cottage bed ' 
Where the Bard-peasant first drew breath; 
A straw-thatched roof above his head, 
A straw-wrought eouch beneath. 
8. And I have stood beside the pile, 
His monument, that tells to Heaven 
The homage of earth’s proudest isle 
To that Bard-peasant given! 
O 


314 


9. 


10. 


11. 


12. 


13. 


14. 


15. 


16. 


17. 


18. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Bid thy thoughts hover o’er that spot, 
Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour ; 
And know, however low his lot, 
A Poet’s pride and power. 
The pride that lifted Burns from earth, 
The power that gave a child of song 
Ascendency o’er rank and birth, 
The rich, the brave, the strong. 
And if despondency weigh down 
Thy spirit’s fluttering pinions then, 
Despair, thy name is written on 
The roll of common men. 
There have been loftier themes than his, 
And longer scrolls, and louder lyres, 
And lays lit up with Poesy’s 
Purer and holier fires : 
Yet read the names that know not death ; 
Few nobler ones than Burns’ are ponte “ 
And few have won a greener wreath 
Than that which binds his hair. 
His is that language of the heart, 
In which the answering heart would speak, 
Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, 
Or the smile light the cheek ; 
And his that musick, to whose tone 
The common pulse of man keeps time, 
In cot or castle’s mirth or moan, 
In cold or sunny clime. 
And who hath heard his song, nor knelt 
Before its spell with willing knee, 
And listened, and believed, and felt 
The Poet’s mastery 
O’er the mind’s sea, in calm and storm, 
O’er the heart’s stinshine, and its showers, 
O’er Passion’s moments, bright and warm, 
O’er Reason’s dark, cold hours ; 
On fields where brave men “ die or do,” 
‘In halls where rings the banquet’s mirth, 
Where mourners weep, where lovers woo, 
From throne to cottage hearth ? 


EE 


19. 


20. 


21. 


22. 


23. 


24. 


25. 


26. 


27. 


28. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


What sweet tears dim the eyes unshed, 
What wild vows falter on the tongue, 
When “Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,” 

Or “ Auld Lang Syne” is sung! 
Pure hopes, that lift the soul above, 
Come with his Cotter’s hymn of praise, 
And dreams of youth, and truth, and love, 
With “ Logan’s” banks and braes. 
And when he breathes his master-lay 
Of Alloway’s witch-haunted wall, 
All passions in our frames of clay 
Come thronging at his call. 
Imagination’s world of air, 
And our own world, its gloom and glee, 
Wit, pathos, poetry, are there, 
And death’s sublimity. 
And Burns, though brief the race he ran, 
Though rough and dark the path he trod, 
Lived, died, in form and soul a Man, 
The image of his God. 
Through care, and pain, and want, and wo, 
With wounds that only death could heal, 
Tortures, the poor alone can know, 
The proud alone can feel ; 
He kept his honesty and truth, 
His independent tongue and pen, 
And moved in manhood and in youth, 
Pride of his fellow-men. 
Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong, 
A hate of tyrant and of knave, 
A love of right, a scorn of wrong, 
Of coward, and of slave ; 
A kind, true heatt, a spirit high, 
That could not fear, and would not bow, 
Were written in his manly eye, 
¢ And on his manly brow. 
Praise to the bard! his words are driven, 
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown, 
02 


315 


316 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Where’er, beneath the sky of heaven, 
The birds of fame have flown. 
29. Praise to the man! a nation stood 
Beside his coffin with wet eyes, 
Her brave, her beautiful, her good, 
As when a loved one dies. 
30. And still, as on his funeral day, 
Men stand his cold earth-couch around, 
With the mute homage that we pay 
To consecrated ground. 
31. And consecrated ground it is, 
The last, the hallowed home of one 
Who lives upon all memories, 
Though with the buried gone. 
32. Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines, 
Shrines to no code or creed confined 
The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind. 
33. Sages, with Wisdom’s garland wreathed, 
Crowned kings, and mitred priests of power, 
And warriours with their bright swords sheathed, 
The mightiest of the hour ; 
34. And lowlier names, whose humble home 
Is lit by Fortune’s dimmer star, 
Are there, o’er wave and mountain come, 
From countries near and far ; 
35. Pilgrims, whose wandering feet have pressed 
The Switzer’s snow, the Arab’s sand, 
Or trod the piled leaves of the West, 
My own green forest-land. 
36. All ask the cottage of his birth, 
Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung, 
And gather feelings not of earth 
His fields and streams among. 
37. They linger by the Doon’s low trees, 
And pastoral Nith, and wooded Ayr 
And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries ! 
The Poet’s tomb is there. » 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 317 


38. But what to them the sculptor’s art, 
His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns ? 
Wear they not graven on the heart 
The name of Robert Burns ? 


LESSON CL. 


Clains of Greece upon America. 


Extract from an Address, delivered in Boston, in behalf of the Greeks, by 
the Rev. S. E. Dwight. 


1. TuoveH not called to plead the cause of Greece before 
my assembled countrymen, yet, at the request of your com- 
mittee, [am at this time allowed, my friends and fellow-citi- 
zens, to urge her claims on you. But need I urge them? 
What heart does not throb, what bosom does not heave, at 
the very thought of Grecian Independence? Have you the 
feelings of aman; and do you not wish that the blood of 
Greece should cease to flow, and that the groans and sighs of 
centuries should be heard no more 2 

2. Are you a scholar ; and shall the land of the muses ask 
your help in vain? With the eye of the enthusiast do you 
often gaze at the triumphs of the arts ; and will you do nothing 
to rescue their choicest relicks from worse than Vandal bar- 
barism? Are you a mother, rejoicing in all the charities of 
domestick life; are you a daughter, rich and safe in conscious 
innocence and parental love; and shall thousands more, 
among the purest and loveliest of your sex, glut the shambles 
of Smyrna, and be doomed to a capacity inconceivably worse 
than death? 

3. Are you a Christian; and do you cheerfully contribute 
your property to christranize the heathen world? What you 
give to Greece is to rescue a nation of Christians from ex- 
termination, to deliver the ancient churches, to overthrow the 
Mahometan imposture, to raise up a standard for the wan- 
dering tribes of Israel, and to gather in the harvest of the 
world. 


318 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


4, Are you an American citizen, proud of the liberty and 
independence of your country? Greece, too, is struggling 
for these very blessings, which she taught your fathers to pur- 
chase with their blood. And when she asks your help, need 
I urge you to bestow it?) Where am I? in the land of the 
Pilgrims, in a land of Independence, in a land of Freemen. 
Here, then, I leave the Grecian cause. 


LESSON CLI. 


WILLIAM TELL, FROM SEVERAL SCENES IN THE DRAMA OF 
KNOWLES. 


Gesler the tyrant, Sarnem his officer, and William Tell a 


Swiss peasant. 


Sar. Down, slave, upon thy knees before the governour, 
And beg for mercy. 
Ges. Does he hear ? 
_ Sar. He does, but braves thy power. [To Tell.] Down, 
slave, 
And ask for life. 
Ges. [To Tell.| Why speak’st thou not? 
Tell. For wonder. 
Ges. Wonder ? 
Tell. Yes, that thou shouldst seem a man. 
Ges. What should I seem? 
Tell. A monster. 
_ Ges. Ha! Beware! think on thy chains. 
Tell. Though they were doubled, and did weigh me down 
Prostrate to earth, methinks I could rise up 
Erect, with nothing but the honest pride 
Of telling thee, usurper, to thy teeth, 
Thou art a monster. Think on my chains! 
How came they on me? 
Ges. Darest thou question me 2? 
Tell. Darest thou answer ? 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 319 


Ges. Beware my vengeance. 

Tell. Can it more than kill? 

Ges. And is not that enough? 

Tell. No, not enough: 

It cannot take away the grace of life ; 

The comeliness of look that virtue gives ; 

Its port erect, with consciousness of truth ; 

Its rich attire of honourable deeds ; 

Its fair report that’s rife on good men’s tongues ; 
It cannot lay its hand on these, no more 

Than it can pluck his brightness from the sun, 
Or with polluted finger tarnish it. 

Ges. But it can make thee writhe. 

Tell. It may, and I may say, 

Go on, though it should make me groan again. 

Ges. Whence comest thou ? 

Tell. From the mountains. 

Ges. Canst tell me any news from them ? 

Tell. Ay ; they watch no more the avalanche. 

Ges. Why so? 

Tell. Because they look for thee. The hurricane 
Comes unawares upon them ; from its bed 
The torrent breaks, and finds them in its track. 

Ges. What then ? 

Tell. They thank kind Providence it is not thou. 
Thou hast perverted nature in them. The earth 
Presents her fruits to them, and is not thanked. 
The harvest sun is constant, and they scarce 
Return his smile. Their flocks and herds increase, 
And they look on as men who count a loss. 
There’s not a blessing Heaven vouchsafes them, but 
The thought of thee doth wither to a curse, 

As something they must lose, and had far better 
Lack. 

Ges. ’Tis well. Id have them as their hills 
That never smile, though wanton summer tempt 
Them e’er so much. 

Tell. But they do sometimes smile. 

Ges. Ah! when is that? 


320 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Tell. When they do pray for vengeance. 
Ges. Dare they pray for that? 
Tell. They dare, and they expect it too. 
Ges. From whence 2» 
Tell. From Heaven, and their true hearts. 
Ges. [To Sarnem.] Lead in his son. Now will I take. 
Exquisite vengeance. [To Tell as the boy enters.] I have 
destined him 
To die along with thee. 
Tell. To die! for what? he’s but a child. 
Ges. He’s thine, however. 
Tell. He is an only child. 
Ges. So much the easier to crush the race. 
Tell. He may have a mother, 
Ges. So the viper hath ; 
And yet who spares it for the mother’s sake ? 
Tell. I talk to stone. Ill talk to it no more. 
Come, my boy, I taught thee how to lives 
I'll teach thee how to die. 
Ges. But first, ’'d see thee make 
A trial of thy skill with that same bow. ’ 
Thy arrows never miss, ’tis said. 
Tell, What is the trial ? 
Ges. Thou look’st upon thy boy as though thou guessedst it. 
Tell. Look upon my boy! What mean you? 
Look upon my boy as though I guessed it! 
Guess the trial thou’dst have me make! 
Guessed it instinctively! Thou dost not mean ; 
No, no, thou wouldst not have me make 
A trial of my skill upon my child ! 
Impossible! I do not guess thy meaning. 
Ges. I’d see thee hit an apple on his head, 
Three hundred paces off. 
Tell. Great Heaven! 
Ges. On this condition will I spare 
His life and thine. 
Tell. Ferocious monster! make a father 
Murder his own child ! 
Ges, Dost thou consent ? 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 321 


Tell. With his own hand! 
The hand I’ve led him when an infant by ! 
My hands are free from blood, and have no gust 
For it, that they should drink my child’s. 
Ill not murder my boy, for Gesler. 
‘Boy. You will not hit me, father. You'll be sure 
To hit the apple. Will you not save me, father ? 
Tell. ead me forth, I’ll make the trial. 
Boy. Father, 
Tell. Speak not to me ; 
Let me not hear thy voice; thou must be dumb ; 
And so should all things be. Earth should be dumb, 
And Heaven, unless its thunder muttered at 
The deed, and sent a bolt to stop it. 
Give me my bow and quiver. 
Ges. When all is ready. Sarnem, measure hence 
The distance, three hundred paces. 
Tell. Will he do it fairly ? 
Ges. What is’t to thee, fairly or not? 
Tell. [sarcastically.| O, nothing, a little thing, 
A very little thing, I only shoot 
At my child! 
[Sarnem prepares to measure. | 
Tell. Villain, stop! You measure against the sun 
Ges. And what of that? 
What matter whether to or from the sun ? 
Tell. Vd have it at my back. The sun should shine 
Upon the mark, and not on him that shoots ; 
I will not shoot against the sun. 
Ges. Give him his way. [.Sarnem paces and goes out. | 
Tell. 1 should like to see the apple I must hit. 
Ges. [ Picks out the smallest one.| There, take that. 
Tell. You’ve picked the smallest one. 
Ges. I know I have. Thy skill will be 
The greater if thou hit’st it. 
Tell. [sarcastically.| True, true! I did not think of that. 
I wonder I did not think of that. A larger one 
Had given me a chance to save my boy. 
Give me my bow. Let me see my quiver. 
03 


322 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Ges. Give him a single arrow. [to an attendant. ] 
[ Tell looks at it and breaks tt.] 
Tell. Let me see my quiver. It is not 

One arrow in a dozen I would use 

To shoot with at a dove, much less a dove 

Like that. 

Ges. Show him the quiver. 

[Sarnem returns, and takes the apple and the boy to place them. 
While this is doing, Tell conceals an arrow under his garment. 
He then selects another arrow and says—] 

Tell. Is the boy ready? Keep silence now 

For Heaven’s sake, and be my witnesses, 

That if his life’s in peril from my. hand, 

Tis only for the chance of saving it. 

For mercy’s sake keep motionless and silent. 

[He aims and shoots in the direction of the boy. In a mo- 
ment Sarnem enters with the apple on the arrow’s point. | 
Sarnem. The boy is safe. 

Tell. [ Raising his arms.|] Thank Heaven ! 
[As he raises his arms the concealed arrow falls. ] 
Ges. [ Picking it up.] Unequalled archer! why was this 
concealed ? 


Tell. To kill thee, tyrant, had I slain my boy. 


LESSON CLII. 


Horrours of War.—Cnatmers. 


1. Tur first great obstacle to the extinction of war, is the 
way in which the heart of man is carried off from its barbari- 
ties and its horrours, by the splendour of its deceitful accom- 
paniments. ‘There is a feeling of the sublime in contempla- 
ting the shock of armies, just as there is in contemplating the 
devouring energy of a tempest; and this so elevates and en- 
grosses the whole man, that his eye is blind to the tears of be- 
reaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the piteous moan of the 
dying, and the shriek of their desolated families. 

' 2. There is a gracefulness in the picture of a youthful war- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 323 


riour burning for distinction on the field, and lured by this gen- 
erous aspiration to the deepest of the animated throng, where, 
in the fell work of death, the opposing sons of valour struggle 
for a remembrance and a name ; and this side of the picture 
is so much the exclusive object of our regard, as to disguise 
from our view the mangled carcasses of the fallen, and the 
writhing agonies of the hundreds and the hundreds more, who 
have been laid on the cvld ground, where they are left to lan- 
guish and to die. 

3. There no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep 
overthem. ‘There no gentle hand is present to ease the dying 
posture, or bind up the wounds, which, in the maddening fury 
of the combat, have been given and received by the children 
of one common father. There death spreads its pale ensigns 
over every countenance, and when night comes on, and dark- 
ness gathers around them, how many a despairing wretch must 
take up with the bloody field as the untended bed of his last 
sufferings, without one friend to bear the message of tender- 
ness to his distant home; without one companion to close 
his eyes. 

4. Lavow it. On every side of mel see causes at work, 
which go to spread a most delusive colouring over war, and to 
remove its shocking barbarities to the back-ground of our con- 
templations altogether. I see it in the history which tells me 
of the superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of 
their successive charges. I see it in the poetry which lends 
the magick of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and trans- 
ports its many admirers, as by its images, and its figures, and 
its nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous em- 
bellishments over a scene of legalized slaughter. 

5, I see it in the musick which represents the progress of 
the battle ; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet-notes 
of preparation, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing- 
room are seen to bend over the sentimental entertainment ; 
nor do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the 
death-tones of the thickening contest, and the moans of the 
wounded men as they fade away upon the ear, and sink into 
lifeless silence. 

6. All, all goes to prove what strange and half-sighted crea- 


324 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


tures we are. Were it not so, war could never have been 
seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness ; 
and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Christian 
sentiment upon earth, to arrest the strong current of its pop- 
ular and prevailing partiality for war. 

7. Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the check 
of severe principle on all the subordinate tastes and faculties 
of our nature. Then will glory be reduced to its right esti- 
mate, and the wakeful benevolence of the gospel, chasing 
away every spell, will be turned by the treachery of no delu- 
sion whatever, from its simple but sublime enterprises for the 
good of the species. Then the reign of truth and quietness 
will be ushered into the world, and war, cruel, atrocious, unre- 
lenting war, will be stripped of its many and its bewildering 
fascinations. 


LESSON CLIII. 
Apologue.x—(Samurt Woopvwortn.)— New York Mirror. 


1. My little girl, the other day 
(Three years of age a month ago) 
Wounded her finger while at play, 
And saw the crimson fluid flow. 
With pleading opticks, raining tears, 
She sought my aid, in terrour wild ; 
I smiling said, ‘ Dismiss your fears, 
And all shall soon be well, my child.” 
Her little bosom ceased to swell, 
While she replied, with calmer brow, 
“ I know that you can make it well, 
But how, papa? I don’t see how.” 


2. Our children oft entreat us thus 
For succour, or for recompense, 
They look with confidence to us, 
As we should look to Providence, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 325 


For each infantile doubt and fear, 
And every little childish grief 

Is uttered to a parent’s ear, 
With full assurance of relief. 

A grateful sense of favours past, 
Incites them to petition now, 

With faith in succour to the last, 
Although they can’t imagine how. 


3. And shall I doubtingly repine, 
When clouds of dark affliction lower? 
A more tender Father still is mine, 
Of greater mercy, love, and power ; . 
He clothes the lily, feeds the dove, 
The meanest insect feels his care ; 
_ And shall not man confess his love, 
Man, his own offspring, and his heir ? 
Yes, though he slay, I’ll trust him still, 
And still with resignation bow ; 
He may relieve, he can, he will, 
Although I cannot yet see how. 


LESSON CLIV. 
Influence of Female Character.—Tuacuer. 


1. Tue influence of woman on the intellectual character 
of the community, may not seem so great and obvious as upon 
its civilization and manners. One reason is, that hitherto 
such influence has seldom been exerted in the most direct way 
of gaining celebrity, the writing of books. In our own age, 
indeed, this has almost ceased to be. the case, and, if we should 
inquire for those persons whose writings for the last half cen- 
tuyy have produced the most practical and enduring effects, 
prejudice itself must confess, that the name of more than one 
illustrious woman would adorn the catalogue. 

2. That the society and influence of woman have often 


326 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


prompted and refined the efforts of genius, may be granted by 
the most zealous advocate for the superiority of our sex. 
From the hallowed retreats of the Port Royal issued the im- 
mortal writings of Pascal, Nicole, and Racine ; and the heav- 
enly muse of Cowper had its inspiration nourished almost ex- 
clusively in the society of females. But, whatever may be 
thought of the influence of the sex in these particulars, there 
is one pomt of view in which it is undeniably great and 1m- 
portant. 

3. The mother of your children is necessarily their first in- 
structer. It is her task to watch over and assist their dawn- 
ing faculties in their first expansion. -And can it be of light 
importance in what manner this task is performed? Will it 
have no influence on the future mental character of the child, 
whether the first lights, which enter its understanding, are re- 
ceived from wisdom or folly? Are there no bad mental habits, 
no lasting biases, no dangerous associations, no deep-seated 
prejudices, which can be communicated from the mother, the 
fondest object of the affection and veneration of the child? 

4. In fine, do the opinions of the age take no direction and 
no colouring from the modes of thinking which prevail among 
one half: of the minds that exist on earth? Unless you are 
willing to say that an incalculably great amount of mental 
power is utterly wasted and thrown away; or else, with a 
Turkish arrogance and brutality, to deny that woman shares 
with you in the possession of a reasoning and immortal mind ; 
you must acknowledge the vast importance of the influence 
which the female sex exerts on the intellectual character of the 
community. 

5. But it is in its moral effects on the mind and the heart 
of man, that the influence of woman is most powerful and 
important. In the diversity of tastes, habits, inclinations, and 
pursuits of the two sexes, is found a most beneficent provision 
for controlling the force and extravagance of human passions, 
The objects which most strongly seize and stimulate the mind 
of man, rarely act at the same time and with equal power on 
the mind of woman. 

6. While he delights im enterprise and action, and the exer- 
cise of the stronger energies of the soul, she is led to engage 


NORTH AMERICAN READER 327 


in calmer pursuits, and seek for gentler enjoyments. While 
he is summoned into the wide and busy theatre of a conten- 
tious world, where the love of power and the love of gain, in 
all their innumerable forms, occupy and tyrannise over the soul, 
she is walking in a more peaceful sphere ; and, though I say 
not that these passions are always unfelt by her, yet they lead 
her to the pursuit of very different objects. The current, if it 
draws its waters in both from the same source, moves with her 
not only in a more narrow stream, and less impetuous tide, but 
sets also ina different direction. Hence it is that the influence 
of the society of woman is almost always to soften the vio- 
lence of those impulses which would otherwise act with so con- 
stant and fatal an influence on the soul of man. 

7. The domestick fireside is the great guardian of society 
against the excesses of human passions. When man, after 
his intercourse with the world, where, alas! he-finds so much 
to inflame him with a feverish anxiety for wealth and distinc- 
tion, retires at evening to the bosom of his family, he finds 
there a repose for his tormenting cares. He finds something 
to bring him back to human sympathies. The tenderness of 
his wife and the caresses of his children introduce a new train 
of ‘softer thoughts and gentler feelings. 

&. He is reminded of what constitutes the real felicity of 
man; and, while his heart expands itself to the influence of 
the simple and intimate delights of the domestick circle, the 
demons of avarice and ambition, if not exorcised from his 
breast, at least, for a time, relax their grasp. How deplorable 
would be the consequence if all these were reversed; and 
woman, instead of checking the violence of these passions, 
were to employ her blandishments and charms to add fuel to 
their rage! How much wider would become the empire of 
guilt! What a portentous and intolerable amount would be 
added to the sum of the crimes and miseries of the human 
race ! 

9. But the influence of the female character on the virtue 
of man, is not seen merely in restraining and softening the 
violence of human passions. To her is mainly committed the 
task of pouring into the opening mind of infancy its first im- 
pressions of duty, and of ‘stamping on its susceptible heart 


328 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


the first image of its God. Who will not confess the influ- 
ence of a mother in forming the heart of achild? Whatman 
is there who cannot trace the origin of many of the best max- 
ims of his life to the lips of her who gave him birth? 

10. How wide, how lasting, how sacred is that part of 
woman’s influence! Who that thinks of it, who that ascribes 
any moral effect to education, who that believes that any 
good may be produced, or any evil prevented by it, can 
need any arguments to prove the importance of the charac- 
ter and capacity of her, who gives its earliest bias to the in- 
fant mind ? 

11. There is yet another mode by which woman may exert 
a powerful influence on the virtue of a community. It rests 
with her, in a pre-eminent degree, to give tone and elevation 
to the moral character of the age, by deciding the degree of 
virtue that shall be necessary to afford a passport to her society. 
The extent of this influence has perhaps never been fully tried ; 
and, if the character of our sex is not better, it is to be con- 
fessed that it is in no trifling degree to be ascribed to the fault 
of yours. 

12. If all. the favour of woman were given only to the 
good; if it were known that the charms and attractions of 
beauty, and wisdom, and wit, were reserved only for the pure ; 
if, in one word, something of a similar rigour were exerted to 
exclude the profligate and abandoned of our sex from your 
society, as is shown to those who have fallen from virtue in 
your own, how much would be done to re-enforce the motives 
to moral purity among us, and impress.on the minds of all a 
reverence for the sanctity and obligations of virtue! 

13. The influence of woman on the moral sentiments of 
society is intimately connected with her influence on its reli- 
gious character ; for religion and a pure and elevated morality 
must ever stand in the relation to each other of effect and 
cause. ‘The heart of woman is formed for the abode of 
Christian truth ; and for reasons alike honourable to her char- 
acter and to that of the Gospel. 

14, From the nature of Christianity this must be so. The 
foundation ot evangelical religion is laid in a deep and con- 
stant sense of the invisible presence, providence, and influence 


NORitH AMERICAN READER. 329 


of an invisible Spirit, who claims the adoration, reverence, 
gratitude, and love of his creatures. 

15. By man, busied as he is in the cares, and absorbed in 
the pursuits of the world, this great truth is, alas! too often 
and too easily forgotten and disregarded ; while woman, less 
engrossed by occupation, more “at leisure to be good,” led 
often by her duties to retirement, at a distance from many 
temptations, and endued with an imagination more easily ex- 
cited and raised than man’s, is better prepared to admit and 
cherish, and be affected by, this solemn and glorious acknowl- 
edgment of a God. 


LESSON CLY. 


On laying the Corner-Stone of the Monument to the Mother 
of Washington.—Mrs. SicouRNEY. 


1. Lone hast thou slept unnoted. Nature stole 
In her soft ministry around thy bed, 

Spreading her vernal tissue, violét-eemmed, 
And pearled with dews. 

2. She bade bright Summer bring 
Gifts of frankincense, with sweet song of birds, 
And Autumn cast his reaper’s coronet 
Down at thy feet, and stormy Winter speak 
Sternly of man’s neglect. 

3. But now we come 
To do thee homage, mother of our chief! 

Fit homage, such as honoureth him who pays. 
Methinks we see thee, as in olden time ; 
Simple in garb, majestick and serene, 
Unmoved by pomp or circumstance, in truth 
Inflexible, and with a Spartan zeal 
Repressing vice, and making folly grave. 

4. Thou didst not deem it woman’s part to waste 
Life in inglorious sloth, to sport awhile 
Amidst the flowers, or on the summer wave, 


330 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


There fleet, like the ephemeron, away, 
Building no temple in her children’s hearts, 
Save to the vanity and pride of life 

Which she had worshipped. 

5. For the might that clothed 
The “ Pater Patrie,” for the glorious deeds 
That make Mount Vernon’s tomb a Mecca shrine 
For all the earth, what thanks to thee are due, 
Who, midst his elements of being, wrought, 

We know not; Heaven can tell. 

6. Rise, sculptured pile ! 

And show a race unborn, who rests below, 

And say to mothers what a holy charge 

Is theirs, with what a kingly power their love 
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind. 
Warn them to wake at early dawn, and sow 
Good seed, before the world hath sown her tares ; 
Nor in their toil decline, that angel-bands 

May put the sickle in and reap for God, 

And gather to his garner. 

7. Ye, who stand, 

With thrilling breast, to view her trophied praise, 
Who nobly reared Virginia’s godlike chief ; 

Ye, whose last thought upon your nightly couch, 
Whose first at waking, is your cradled son, 

What though no high ambition prompts to rear 
A second Washington ; or leave your name 
Wrought out in marble with a nation’s tears 

Of deathless gratitude; yet may you raise 

A monument above the stars ; a soul 

Led by your teachings, and your prayers to God. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 331 


LESSON CLVI. 


Patriotick Speech of Robert Emmet, Esq. before Lord Nor- 
bury, at the Session House, Dublin, on an Endictment for 
Migh Treason.—Extract. 

This gallant young man had been an active leader in a Revolutionary at- 


tempt in Ireland, vulgarly and basely called an “Irish Rebellion.” He 
suffered death in 1803, and in the twenty-second year of his age. 


1. My Lorps,—What have I to say why the sentence of 
death should not be pronounced on me, according to law? I 
have nothing to say, that can alter your predetermination, nor 
that it will become me to say with any view to the mitigation 
of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must 
abide by. But I have that to say which interests me more 
than life, and which you have laboured (as was necessarily 
your office in the present circumstances of this oppressed 
country) to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation 
should be rescued from the load of false accusation and cal- 
umny which has been heaped upon it. 

2. I do notimagine that, seated where you are, your minds 
can be so free from impurity, as to receive the least impression 
from what I am going to utter; I have no hopes that I can 
anchor my character in the breast of a court constituted and 
trammelled as this is; I only wish, and it is the utmost I ex- 
pect, that your lordships may suffer it to float down your 
memories untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, until it 
finds some more hospitable harbour to shelter it from the storm 
by which it is at present buffeted. 

3. Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty 
by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate 
that awaits me without a murmur: but the sentence of law 
which delivers my body to the executioner, will, through the 
ministry of that law, labour in its own vindication, to consign 
my character to obloquy, for there must be guilt somewhere : 
whether in the sentence of the court or in the catastrophe, 
posterity must determine. 


332 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


4. A man in my situation, my lords, has not only to en- - 
counter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of power over 
minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the difficulties 
of established prejudice : the man dies, but his memory lives : 
that mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my 
countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself 
from some of the charges alleged against me. 

5. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port ; 
when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred 
heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the 
field, in defence of their country and of virtue, this is my 
hope ; I wish that my memory and name may animate those 
who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the 
destruction of that perfidious government, which upholds its 
domination by blasphemy of the Most High; which displays 
its power over man as over the beasts of the forest; which 
sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand in the name of 
God against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a 
little more or a little less than the government standard; a 
government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the 
orphans and the tears of the widows which it has made. 

[Here Lord Norbury interrupted Mr. Emmet, saying, that 
the mean and wicked enthusiasts who felt as he did, were not 
equal to the accomplishment of their wild designs.] 

6. I appeal to the immaculate God, I swear by the throne 
of Heaven, before which I must shortly appear, by the blood 
of the murdered patriots who have gone before me, that my 
conduct has been through all this peril and all my. purposes, _ 
governed only by the convictions which I have uttered, and by 
no other view than that of their cure, and the emancipation 
of my country from the superinhuman oppression under which 
she has so long and too patiently travailed ; and that I confi- 
dently and assuredly hope, that, wild and chimerical as it may 
appear, there are still union and strength in Ireland to accom- 
plish this noble enterprise. 

- 7% Of this I speak with the confidence of intimate knowl- 
edge, and with the consolation that appertains to that confi- 
dence. Think not, my lord, I say this for the petty gratifica- 
tion of giving you a transitory uneasiness ; a man who never 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 333 


yet raised his voice to assert a lie, will not hazard his character 
with posterity by asserting a falsehood on a subject so im- 
portant to his country, and on an occasion like this. Yes, my 
lords, a man who does not wish to have his epitaph written 
until his country is liberated, will not leave a weapon in the 
power of envy; nor a pretence to impeach the probity which 
he means to preserve even in the grave to which tyranny con- 
signs him. . 
[Here he was again interrupted by the court.] 

8. Again I say, that what I have spoken was not intended 
for your lordship, whose situation I commiserate rather than 
envy ; my expressions were for my countrymen ; if there be a 
true Irishman present, let my last words cheer him in the hour 
of his afiliction ; 

[Here he was again interrupted. Lord Norbury said he 
did not sit there to hear treason. | 

9. I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge, 
when a prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sentence 
of the law; I have also understood that judges sometimes 
think it their duty to hear with patience, and to speak with 
humanity ; to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer with 
tender benignity his opinions of the motives by which he was 
actuated in the crime, of which he has been adjudged guilty : 

10. That a judge has thought it his duty so to do, I 
have no doubt; but where is the boasted freedom of your 
institutions, where are the vaunted impartiality, clemency, and 
mildness of your courts of justice, if an unfortunate prisoner, 
whom your policy, and not pure justice, is about to deliver into 
the hands of the executioner, be not suffered to explain his — 
motives sincerely and truly, and to vindicate the principles by 
which he was actuated ? 

11. My lords, it‘*may be a part of the system of angry jus- 
tice, to bow a man’s mind by humiliation to the purposed ig- 
nominy of the scaffold ; but worse to me than the purposed 
shame, or the scaffold’s terrours, would be the shame of such 
foul and unfounded imputations as have been laid against me 
in this court: you, my lord, are a judge, I am the supposed 
culprit; I am aman, you are a man also; by a revolution of 
power, we might change places, though we never could change 


334 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


characters; if I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not 
vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice ! 

12. If I stand at this bar and dare not vindicate my char- 
acter, how dare you calumniate it? Does the sentence of death 
which your unhallowed policy inflicts on my body, also con- 
demn my tongue to silence and my reputation to reproach? 
Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence ; 
but while I exist, I shall not forbear to vindicate my character 
and motives from your aspersions; and as a man to whom 
fame is dearer than life, | will make the last use of that life 
in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, 
and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honour and 
love, and for whom I am proud to perish. 

13. As men, my lord, we must appear at the great day at 
one common tribunal, and it will then remain for the Searcher 
of all hearts to show a collective universe who was engaged 
in the most virtuous actions, or actuated by the purest motives, 
my country’s oppressor or— 

[Here he was interrupted, and told to listen to the sentence 
of the law.] 

14. My lord, will a dying man be denied the legal privilege 
of exculpating himself, in the eyes of the community, of an 
undeserved reproach thrown upon him during his trial, by 
charging him with ambition, and attempting to cast away, for 
a paltry consideration, the liberties of his country? Why did 
your lordship insult me? or rather why insult justice, in de- 
manding of me why sentence of death should not be pro- 
nounced ? 

15. I know, my lord, that form prescribes that you should 
ask the question ; the form also presumes a right of answer- 
ing. This no doubt may be dispensed with, and so might 
the whole ceremony of trial, since sentence was already pro- 
nounced at the castle, before your jury was empannelled ; 
your lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I submit ; 
but I insist on the whole of the forms. 

[ Here the Court desired him to proceed.] 

16. I. am charged with being an emissary of France! An 
emissary of France! And for what end? It is alleged that 
I wished to sell the independence of my country! And for 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 335 


what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is 
this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles con- 
tradictions ? No, I am no emissary ; and my ambition was to 
hold a place among the deliverers of my country; not in 
power, nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement ! 

17. Sell my country’s independence to France! And for 
what? Was it for a change of masters? No! But for 
ambition! O, my country, was it personal ambition that could 
influence me? had it been the soul of my actions, could I not 
by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of 
my family, have placed myself among the proudest of my 
oppressors? My country was my idol ; to it I sacrificed every 
selfish, every endearing sentiment ; and for it I now offer up 
my life. 

18. O God! No, my lord; I acted as an Irishman, de- 
termined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign 
and unrelenting tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a 
domestick faction, which is its joint partner and perpetrator in 
the parricide, for the ignominy of existing with an exteriour of 
splendour and of eonscious depravity. It was the wish of 
my heart to extricate my country from this doubly riveted des- 
potism. I wished to place her independence beyond the reach 
of any power on earth; I wished to exalt you to that proud 
station in the world. 

19. Ihave been charged with that importance in the efforts 
to emancipate my country, as to be considered the key-stone 
of the combination of Irishmen; or, as your lordship ex- 
pressed it, “the life and blood of conspiracy.” You do me 
honour over-much. You have given to the subaltern all the 
credit of a superiour. There are men engaged in this con- 
sptracy, who are not only superiour to me, but even to your 
own conceptions of yourself, my lord; men, before the splen- 
dour of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful 
deference, and who would think themselves dishonoured to be | 
called your friend, who would not disgrace themselves by 
shaking your blood-stained hand— 

[Here he was interrupted. ] 

20. What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to 

that scaffold, which that tyranny, of which you are only the 


336 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


intermediary executioner, has erected for my murder, that I 
‘am accountable for all the blood that has, and will be shed in 
this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor? shall you 
tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it ? 

21. Ido not fear to approach the omnipotent Judge, to an- 
swer for the conduct of my whole life; and am I to be ap- 
palled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here? By 
you, too, who, if it were possible to collect all the innocent 
blood that you have shed in your unhallowed ministry, in one 
great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it. 

[Here the Judge interfered.]| 

22. Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with 
dishonour ; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I 
could have engaged in any cause but that of my country’s 
liberty and independence ; or that I could have become the 
pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of 
my countrymen. ‘The proclamation of the provisional gov- 
ernment speaks for our views ; no inference can be tortured 
from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or 
subjection, humiliation, or treachery froff abroad; I would 
not have submitted toa foreign oppressor, for the same reason 
that I would resist the foreign and domestick oppressor ; in 
the dignity of freedom I would have fought upon the threshold 
of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing 
over my lifeless corpse. 

23. Am I, who lived but for my country, and who have 
subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful 
oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my 
countrymen their rights, and my country her independence, 
and am I to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to resent 
or repel it?’ No, God forbid! 

24. If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the 
concerns and cares of those who are dear to them in this 
transitory life; O ever dear and venerated shade of my de- 
parted father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your 
suffering son; and see if I have even for a moment deviated 
from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was 
your care to instil into my youthful mind; and for which Iam 
bow to offer up my life. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 337 


25. My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice ; the blood 
which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrours 
which surround your victim ; it circulates warmly and unruf- 
fled, through the channels which God created for noble pur- 
poses, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so 
grievous, that they cry to heaven. Je yet patient! I have 
but a few words more to say. Jam going to my cold .and 
silent grave: my lamp of life is nearly extinguished: my 
race is run: the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its 
bosom ! 

26. I have but one request to ask at my departure from 
this world, it is the charity of its silence! Let no man write 
my epitaph: for as no man who knows my motives dare now 
vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. 
Let them and me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb 
remain uninscribed, until other times, and other men, can do 
justice to my character; when my country takes her place 
among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my 
epitaph be written. I HAVE DONE. 


LESSON CLVII. 


Mount Etna.—Lon. ENcycuLopepia. 


1. THE man who treads Mount Etna, seems like a man 
above the world. He generally is advised to ascend before 
daybreak ; the stars now brighten, shining like so many gems 
of flames; others appear which were invisible below. ‘The 
milky-way seems like a pure flake of light lying across the 
firmament, and it is the opinion of some that the satellites of 
Jupiter might be discovered by the naked eye. 

2. But when the sun arises, the prespect from the summit 
of Etna is beyond comparison the fir est in nature. The eye 
rolls over it with astonishment and is lost. The diversity of 
objects ; the extent of the horizon; the immense height; the 
country like a map at our feet; the ocean around; the heay- 
ens above; all conspire to overwhelm the mind, and affect it 
with sensations of astonishment and grandeur. 


338 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


3. We must be allowed to extract Mr. Brydone’s descrip- 
tion of this scene. ‘“ There is not,” he says, “on the surface 
of the globe, any one point that unites so many awlul and sub- 
lime objects. ‘The immense elevation from the surface of the 
earth, drawn as it were to a single point, without any neighbour- 
ing mountain for the senses and imagination to rest upon and 
recover from their astonishment, in their way down to the world. 

4, “ This point or pinnacle, raised on the brink of a bot- 
tomless gulf, as old as the world, often discharges rivers of 
fire, and throws out burning rocks, with a noise that shakes 
the whole island. Add to this the unbounded extent of the 
prospect, comprehending the greatest diversity, and the most 
beautiful scenery in nature, with the rising sun advancing m 
the east, to illuminate the wondrous scene. 

5. ** The whole atmosphere by degrees kindles up, and 
shows dimly and faintly the boundless prospect around. Both 
sea and land appear dark and confused, as if only emerging 
from their original chaos, and light and darkness seem still 
undivided ; till the morning, by degrees advancing, completes 
the separation. ‘The stars are extinguished, and the shades 
disappear. 

6. * The forests, which but now seemed black and bottom- 
less gulfs, from whence no ray was reflected to show their form 
or colours, appear a new creation rising to sight, catching life 
and beauty from every increasing beam. ‘The scene still en- 
larges, and the horizon seems to widen and expand itself on 
all sides; till the sun, like the great Creator, appears in the 
east, and with his plastick ray completes the mighty scene. 

7. “ All appears enchantment : and it is with difficulty we 
can believe we are still on earth. The senses, unaccustomed 
to the sublimity of such a scene, are bewildered and confound- 
ed; and it is not till after some time, that they are capable of 
separating and judging of the objects that compose it. 

8. “The body of the sun is seen rising from the ocean, 
immense tracts both of sea and land intervening ; the islands 
of Lipari, Panari, Alicudi, Strombolo, and Volcano, with their 
smoking summits, appear under your feet ;-and you look down 
on the whole of Sicily as on a map ; and can trace every river 
through all its windings, from its source to its mouth. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 339 


9. “ The view is absolutely boundless on every side; nor 
is there any one object within the circle of vision to interrupt 
it, so that the sight is everywhere lost in the immensity ; and 
I am persuaded, it is only from the imperfection of our organs, 
that the coasts of Africa, and even of Greece, are not discoy- 
ered, as they are certainly above the horizon. The circum- 
ference of the visible horizon en ae top of Etna, cannot be 
less than 2000 miles. 

10. « At Malta, which is near 200 miles distant, they per- 
ceive all the eruptions from the second region: and that island 
is often discovered from about one half the elevation of the 
mountain : so that, at the whole elevation the horizon must ex- 
tend to near double that distance, or 400 miles, which makes 
800 miles for the diameter of the circle, and 2400 for the cir- 
cumference ; but this is by much too vast fer our senses, not 
intended to grasp so boundless a scene. 

11. “ The most beautiful part of the scene is certainly the 
mountain itself, the island of Sicily, and the numerous islands 
lying round it. All these, by a kind of magick in vision, that 
Iam ata loss to account for, seem as if they were brought 
close round the skirts of Etna; the distances appearing re- 
duced to nothing. 

12. “ Perhaps this singular effect is produced by the rays 
of light passing from a rarer medium into a denser, which, 
(from a well-known law in opticks), to an observer in the rare 
medium, appears to lift up objects that are at the bottom of the 
dense one, as a piece of money placed in a basin appears lifted 
up as soon as the basin is filled with water. 

13. “ The Regione Deserta, or the frigid zone of Etna, is 
the first object that calls your attention. It is marked out by” 
a circle of snow and ice, which extends on all sides to the dis- 
tance of about eight miles. In the centre of this circle, the 
great crater of the mountain rears its burning head, and the 
regions of intense cold, and of intense heat, seem for ever to 
be united in the same point. 

14. “ The Regione Deserta is immediately succeeded by 
the Sylvosa, or the woody region, which forms a circle or gir- 
dle of the most beautiful green, which surrounds the mountain 
on all sides, and is certainly one of the most delightful spots 

P2 


340 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


onearth. This presents a remarkable contrast with the desert 
yegionj. ;*: Sikes 

15. “It is not smooth and even, like the greatest part of 
the latter ; but is finely variegated by an infinite number of 
those -beautiful little mountains, that have been formed by the 
different eruptions of Etna. All these have now acquired a 
wonderful degree of fertility, except a very few that are but 
newly formed, that is, within these five or six hundred years ; 
for it certainly requires some thousands, to bring them to their 
greatest degree of perfection. We looked down into the cra- 
ters of these, and attempted, but in vain, to number them. 

16. “ This zone is everywhere succeeded by the vineyards, 
-orchards, and corn-fields that compose the Regione Culta, or 
the fertile region. _ This zone makes a delightful contrast with 
the other two regions. It is bounded by the sea to the south 
and southeast, and on all its other sides, by the rivers Semetus 
and Alcantara, which run almost round it. The whole course 
of these rivers is seen at once, and all their beautiful windings 
through these fertile valleys, looked upon as the favourite pos- 
session of Ceres herself. 
‘ 17. “Cast your eyes a little farther, and you embrace the 
whole island; all its cities, rivers, and mountains, delineated 
in the great chart of nature ; all the adjacent islands, and the 
whole coast of Italy, as far as your eye can reach; for it is 
nowhere bounded, but everywhere lost in the space. On the 
sun’s first rising, the shadow of the mountain extends across 
the whole island, and makes a large tract visible even in the 
sea and in the air. By degrees this is shortened, and in a 
little time is confined only to the neighbourhood of Etna.” 


LESSON CLVIII. 


To Seneca Lake.—PEeERcIvVAL. 


1. On thy fair bosom, silver lake, 
The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, 
And round his breast the ripples break, 
As down he bears before the gale. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER 341 


2. On thy fair bosom, waveless stream, — 
The dipping paddle echoes far, 
And flashes in the moonlight gleam, 
And bright reflects the polar star. = 
3. The waves along thy pebbly shore, 
As blows the north wind, heave their Garni; 
And curl around the dashing oar, 
As late the boatman hies him nome. 
4. How sweet, at set of sun, to view 
Thy golden mirror spreading wide, 
And see the mist of mantling blue 
Float round the distant mountain’s side ! 
5. At midnight hour, as shines the moon, 
A sheet of silver spreads below, 
And swift she cuts, at highest noon, 
Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow. 
6. On thy fair bosom, silver lake, 
O! I could ever sweep the oar, 
When early birds at morning wake, 
And evening tells us toil is o’er. 


LESSON CLIX. 
The true Pride of Ancestry.—WeEBsTER. 


1.7I7.is a noble faculty of our nature, which enables us to 
connect our thoughts, our sympathies, and our happiness, with 
what is distant in place or time; and, looking before and after. 
to hold communion at once with our ancestors and our pos- 
terity. Human and mortal although we are, we are, never- 
theless, not mere insulated beings, without relation to the past 
or the future. Neither the point of time nor the spot of earth, 
in which we physically live, bounds our rational and intellec- 
tual enjoyments. 

2. We live in the past by a knowledge of its history, and 
in the future by hope and anticipation. By ascending to an 
association with our ancestors ; by contemplating their exam- 


842 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


ple and studying their character ; by partaking their sentiments 
and imbibing their spirit; by accompanying them in their toils ; 
by sympathizing in their sufferings, and rejoicing in their suc- 
cesses and their triumphs, we mingle our own existence with 
theirs, and seem to belong to their age. 

3. We become their contemporaries, live the lives which 
they lived, endure what they endured, and partake in the re- 
wards which they enjoyed. And in like manner, by running 
along the line of future time ; by contemplating the probable 
fortunes of those who are coming after us; by attempting 
something which may promote their happiness, and leave some 
not dishonourable memorial of ourselves for their regard when 
we shall sleep with the fathers, we protract our own earthly 
being, and seem to crowd whatever is future, as well as all 
that is past, into the narrow compass of our earthly existence. 

4. As it isnot a vain and false, but an exalted and religious 
imagination, which leads us to raise our thoughts from the orb 
which, amidst this universe of worlds, the Creator has given 
us to inhabit, and to send them with something of the feeling 
which nature prompts, and teaches to be proper among chil- 
dren of the same Eternal Parent, to the contemplation of the 
myriads of fellow-beings, with which his goodness has peopled 
the infinite of space; so neither is it false or vain to consider 
ourselves as interested or connected with our whole race 
through all time ; allied to our ancestors ; allied to our pos- 
terity ; closely compacted on all sides with others ; ourselves 
being but links in the great chain of being, which begins with 
the origin of our race, runs onward through its successive 
generations, binding together the past, the present, and the fu- 
ture, and terminating, at last, with the consummation of all 
things earthly, at the throne of God. _ 

5. There may be, and there often is, indeed, a regard for 
ancestry, which nourishes only a weak pride; as there is also 
a care for posterity, which only disguises an habitual avarice, 
or hides the workings of a low and grovelling vanity. But 
there is, also, a moral and philosophical respect for our ances- 
tors, which elevates the character and improves the heart. 

6. Next to the sense of religious duty and moral feeling, I 
hardly know what should bear with stronger obligation on a 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 343 


liberal and enlightened mind, than a consciousness of alliance 
with excellence which is departed ; and a consciousness, too, 
that, in its acts and conduct, and even in its sentiments, it may 
be actively operating on the happiness of those who come 
after it. 

7. Poetry is found to have few stronger conceptions, by 
which it would affect or overwhelm the mind, than those in 
which it presents the moving and speaking image of the de- 
parted dead to the senses of the living. This belongs to poe- 
try only because it is congenial to our nature. Poetry is, in 
this respect, but the handmaid of true philosophy and morality. 

8. It deals with us as human beings, naturally reverencing 
those whose visible connexion with this state of being is sev- 
ered, and who may yet exercise, we know not what sympathy 
with ourselves; and when it carries us forward, also, and 
shows us the long-continued result of all the good we do, in 
the prosperity of those who follow us, till it bears us from our- 
selves, and absorbs us in an intense interest for what shall hap- 
pen to the generations after us, it speaks only in the language 
of our nature, and affects us with sentiments which belong to 
us as human beings. 


LESSON CLX. 
_ August.—Bryant.—New York Mirror. 


1. THe quiet August noon is come ; 
A slumberous silence fills the sky ; 
The fields are still, the woods are dumb, 
In glassy sleep the waters lie. 
2. And mark yon soft white clouds, that rest 
Above our vale, a moveless throng ; 
The cattle on the mountain’s breast 
Enjoy the grateful shadow long. 
3. Oh, how unlike those merry hours 
In sunny June, when earth laughs out ; 
When the fresh winds make love to flowers, 
And woodlands sing and waters shout! 


344 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


4. When in the grass sweet waters talk, 
And strains of tiny musick swell 
From every moss-cup of the rock, 
From every nameless blossom’s bell ! 
5. But now, a joy too deep for sound, 
,A peace no other season knows, 
Hushes the heavens, and wraps the ground, 
The blessing of supreme repose. 
6. Away! I will not be, to-day, — 
The only slave of toil and care ; 
Away from desk and dust, away ! 
Pll be as idle as the air. 
7. Beneath the open sky abroad, 
Among the plants and breathing things, 
The sinless, peaceful works of God, 
Pll share the calm the season brings. 
8. Come thou, in whose soft eyes I see 
The gentle meaning of the heart, 
One day amid the woods with thee, 
From men and all their cares apart. 
9. And where, upon the meadow’s breast, 
The shadow of the thicket lies, 
The blue wild flowers thou gatherest 
Shall glow yet deeper near thine eyes. 
10. Come, and when, mid the calm profound, — 
I turn, those gentle eyes to seek, 
They like the lovely landscape round, 
Of innocence and peace shall speak. 
11. Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade, 
And on the silent valleys gaze, 
Winding and widening till they fade 
In yon soft ring of summer haze. 
12. The village trees their summits rear 
Still as its spire: and yonder flock, 
At rest in those calm fields, appear 
As chiselled from the lifeless rock. 
13. One tranquil mount the scene o’erlooks, 


Where the hushed winds their sabbath keep, 


While a near hum, from bees and brooks, 
Comes faintly like the breath of sleep. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 345 


_ 14. Well might the gazer deem, that when, 

Worn with the struggle and the strife, 

And heart-sick at the sons of men, 
The good forsake the scenes of life ; 

15. Like the deep quiet, that awhile 

Lingers the lovely landscape o’er, 

Shall be the peace whose ei smile 
Welcomes them to a happier shore. 


LESSON CLXI. 


A. #0: from a Discourse, delivered by Dr. Wilbur Fisk, before the Legis- 
w'zre of Vermont, on the Day of General Election, at Montpelier, Oc- 
doles 12, 1826. 


1. TERE is a spirit, an active, aspiring principle in man, 
which casnot be broken down by Aidit? or satisfied by 
indulgenwe. 


‘He has a soul of vast desires, 
It burns within with restless fires.” 


Desires, which no earthly good can satisfy; fires which no 
waters of alliction or discouragementcan quench. And itis 
from this las nature, that society derives all its interests, and 
here also hiss all its danger. ° This spirit is at once the ter- 
rour of tyrants, and the destroyer of republicks. 

2. To form some idea of its strength, let us look at it in its 
different conditions, both when it is depressed, and when it is 
exalted. See when it is bent down fora time, by the iron 
grasp and leaden sceptre of tyranny, cramping, and curtailing, 
and hedging in the soul, and foiling it in all its attempts to 
break from its bowds and assert its native independence. In 
these cases, the noble spirit, like a wild beast in the toils, sinks 
down at times, into sullen inactivity, only that it may rise 
again, when exhausted nature is a little restored, to rush, as 
hope excites or madness impels, in stronger paroxysms against 
the cords which bind it down. 

3. This is seen in the mobs and rebellions of the most 

P3 


346 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


besotted and enslaved nations. Witness the repeated con- 
vulsions in Ireland, that degraded and oppressed g¢ountry. 
Neither desolating armies, nor numerous garrisons, nor the 
most rigorous administration, enforced by thousands of pub- 
lick executions, can break the spirit of that restless people. 

4. Witness Greece ; generations have passed away since 
the warriours of Greece have had their feet put in fetters, and 
the race of heroes had apparently become extinct; and the 
Grecian lyre had long been unstrung, and her lights put out. 
Her haughty masters thought her spirit was dead ; but it was 
not dead, it only slept. Ina moment, as it were, we saw all 
Greece in arms ; she shook off her slumbers, and rushed with 
phrensy and hope, upon seeming impossibilities, to conquer or 
to die. 

5. And though the mother and the daughter, as well as the 
father and the son, have fought and fallen in the common 
cause, until her population grows thin; though Missolonghi 
and many other strong holds are fallen, until her fortifications 
are few and feeble ; though Christian nations have looked on 
with a cruel inactivity, without lending their needed aid; yet 
the spirit of Greece is no more subdued than at the com- 
- mencement of the contest. It cannot be subdued. 

6. We see then that man has a spirit, which is not easily 
broken down by oppression. Let us inquire, whether it can 
be more easily satisfied by indulgence. Andin every step of 
this inquiry, we shall find that no miser ever yet had gold 
enough; no office-seeker ever yet had honour enough; no 
conqueror ever yet subdued kingdoms enough. When the 
rich man had filled his store-houses, he must pull down and 
build larger. When Cesar had conquered all his enemies, he 
must enslave his friends. 

7. When Bonaparte had become the Emperour of France, 
he aspired to the throne of all Europe. Facts, a thousand 
facts, in every age and among all classes, prove, that such is 
the ambitious nature of the soul, such the increasing com- 
pass of its vast desires, that the material universe, with all its 
vastness, richness, and variety, cannot satisfy-it. Nor is it in 
the power of the governments of this world, in their most per- 
fect forms, so to interest the feelings, so to regulate the de- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 347 


sires, So to restrain the passions, or so to divert, or charm, or 
chain the souls of a whole community, but that these latent 
and ungovernable fires will sooner or later burst out and en- 
danger the whole body politick. 

8. I know it has been supposed, by the politicians, that in 
an intelligent and. well-educated community, a government 
might be so constituted by a proper balance of power, by 
equal representation, and by leaving open the avenues to 
office and wealth, for a fair and honourable competition among 
all classes, as to perpetuate the system to the latest posterity. 
Such a system of government, it is acknowledged, is the most 
likely to continue; but all these political and literary helps, 
unaided by the kingdom of Christ, will not secure any com- 
munity from revolution and ruin. 

9. And he knows but little of the nature of man who 
judges otherwise. What has been the fate of the ancient re- 
publicks? They have been dissolved by this same restless 
and disorganizing spirit, of which we have been speaking. 
And do we not see the same dangerous spirit, in our own com- 
paratively happy and strongly constituted republick ? 

10. The wise framers of our excellent political institu- 
tions, like the eclectick philosophers, have selected the best 
parts out of all the systems which preceded them; and to 
these have added others, according to the suggestions of their 
own wisdom, or the leadings of Providence, and have formed 
the whole into a constitution, the most perfect the world has 
ever witnessed. Here every thing that is rational in political 
liberty, is enjoyed; here the most salutary checks and re- 
straints, that have yet been discovered, are laid upon men in 
office. . 

11. Here the road to honour and wealth is open to all; 
and here is general intelligence. But here man is found to 
possess the same nature as elsewhere. And the stirrings 
of his restless spirit have already disturbed the peace of so- 
ciety, and portend future convulsions. Party spirit is begot- 
ten; ambitious views are engendered, and fed, and inflamed ; 
many are running the race for office ; rivals are envied ;_char- 
acters are aspersed ; animosities are enkindled ; and the whole 
community are disturbed by the electioneering contest. 


348 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


12. No meanness is foregone, no calumny is too glaring, 
no venality is too base, when the mind is inflamed with strong 
desire, and elated with the hope of success, in the pursuit of 
some favourite object. And when the doubtful question is 
decided, it avails nothing. Disappointment sours the mind, 
and often produces the most bitter enmity and the most settled 
and systematick opposition, in the unsuccessful party ; while 
success but imperfectly satisfies the mind of the more for- 
tunate. 

13. And if no other influence come in, to curb the turbu- 
lent spirits of men, besides that which is found in our general 
intelligence, and constitutional checks, probably, at no great 
distance of time, such convulsions may be witnessed in our 
now happy country, as shall make the ears of him that heareth 
it tingle, and the eyes of him that seeth it weep blood: State 
may be arrayed against state, section against section, and 
party against party, till all the horrours of civil war may deso- 
late our land. Are there no grounds for such fears ? 

14. Already office-seekers, in different parts of the country, 
unblushingly recommend themselves to notice, and palm them- 
selves upon the people, by every electioneering manceuvre ; 
and in this way, such an excitement is produced, in many parts 
of the union, as makes the contending parties almost like 
mobs, assailing each other. Only let the publick sense be- 
come vitiated, and Jet a number of causes unite to produce a 
general excitement, and all our fair political proportions would 
fall before the spirit of party, as certainly and as ruinously as 
the fair proportions of Italian architecture fell before the an- 
cient Goths and Vandals. 


LESSON CLXII. 
The Goodness of Providence.—J. K. Pavuupine. 
1, Winter, with his hoary beard and fiery proboscis, 


whence hung glittering icicles like jewels from barbarian nose, 
now stripped the forest of its green leaves, the gardens of their 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 349 


blushing honours, and cast them away like worthless weeds to 
wither and die, and return like man, and all created nature, to 
their common mother, earth. 

2. There are who complain of the different dispensations 
of Providence to man and the world he inhabits ; that the for- 
mer knows but one fleeting spring, while the other every re- 
volving year renews its youthful beauty till the consummation 
of all things arrives. 

3. But beshrew such pestilent humgruffians! hath not the 
wise Dispenser of all good things made ample amends by giv- 
ing us memory to recall our youthful pleasures ; fancy to paint 
a thousand scenes fairer and more delicious than spring e’er 
offered to the eye of mortals? 

4. And, last and best of all, hath he not given us Hope, 
whose glorious visions far exceed all that the May of life ever 
realized? ‘The richest gifts showered on the earth; her dia- 
monds, gold, and carpets of flowers; her power of renewing 
all her youthful charms at each revolving year, are nothing to 
those bestowed on man; his reason, and his immortality. 

5. Yet let us not undervalue our good old mother earth, for 
good she is, ay, and beautiful too, whether clothed in the east- 
ern magnificence of imperial green, or basking in the glowing 
gold of summer sunshine, or flaunting like Joseph in the 
many-coloured coat of autumn, or wrapped in her wintry 
winding-sheet, she awaits like the just man the hour when she 
shall arise more glorious for her long sleep. 

6. Who can contemplate her smiling valleys, rich meadows, 
golden harvests, grateful flowers, whispering woods, endless 
winding rivers, boundless pathless seas, full-bosomed hills, and 
cloud-capped mountains, without a feeling of awful recognition 
of Infinite Power? Who can behold the admirable union and 
aptness with which all these participate in one a end with- 
out doing homage to Infinite Wisdom ? 

7. And who can revel in the balmy air, inhale the breath of 
the meadows and the flowers, listen to the musick of her birds, 
her brooks, her whispering leaves, her answering echoes, and 
taste her other bounteous gifts of all that man can wish or en- 
joy, witnout bowing his head in grateful acknowledgment of 
Infinite Mercy ? ro 


350 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CLXIII. 
Danger of Bad Habits.—Priest ey. 


1. A man’s case may be pronounced to be desperate, when 
his mind is brought into such a state as that the necessary 
means of reformation shall have lost their effect upon him; 
and this is the natural consequence of confirmed habits of 
vice, and a long-continued neglect of the means of religion 
and virtue ; which is so far from being an impossible or im- 
probable case, that it is a very general one. 

2. In order to be the more sensible of this, you are to con- 
sider that vice is a habit, and therefore of a subtle and insinu- 
ating nature. By easy, pleasing, and seemingly harmless ac- 
tions, men are often betrayed into a progress, which grows 
every day more alarming. Our virtuous resolutions may 
break with difficulty. It may be with pain and reluctance that 
we commit the first acts of sin, but the next are easier to us ; 
and use, custom, and habit, will at last reconcile us to any 
thing, even things the very idea of which might at first be 
shocking to us. 

3. Vice is a thing not to be trifled with. You may, by the 
force of vigorous resolution, break off in the early stages of 
it; but habits, when they have been confirmed, and long con- 
tinued, are obstinate things to contend with, and are hardly ever 
entirely subdued. When bad habits seem to be overcome, 
and we think we have got rid of pur chains, they may perhaps 
ony have become, as it were, invisible; so that when we 
thought we had recovered our freedom and strength, so as to 
be able to repel any temptation, we may lose all power of re- 
sistance on the first approach of it. 

4. A man who has contracted a habit of vice, and been 
abandoned to sinful courses for some time, is never out of 
danger. He is exactly in the case of a man who has long 
laboured under a chronical disease, and is perpetually subject 
toa relapse. The first shock of “any disorder a man’s consti- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 351 


tution may bear, and, if he be not naturally subject to it, he 
may perfectly recover, and be out of danger. But when the 
general habit is such, as that a relapse is apprehended, a man’s 
friends and physicians are alarmed for him. 

5. The reason is, that a relapse does not find a person in 
the condition in which he was when the first fit of illness seized 
him. That gave his constitution a shock, and left him en- 
feebled, so as to be less able to sustain another shock; and 
especially if it be more violent than the former, as is generally 
the case in those disorders. 

6. In the very same dangerous situation is the man who 
has ever been addicted to vicious courses. He can never be 
said to be perfectly recovered, whatever appearances may 
promise, but is always in danger of a fatal relapse. He ought, 
therefore, to take the greatest care of himself. He is not in 
the condition of a person who has never known the ways of 
wickedness. 

7. He ought, therefore, to have the greatest distrust of him- 
self, and set a double watch over his thoughts, words, and ac- 
tions, for fear of a surprise. For if once, through the force 
of any particular temptation, he should fall back into his for- 
mer vicious courses, and his former disposition should return, 
his case will probably be desperate. He will plunge himself 
still deeper in wickedness ; and his having abstained for a 
time, will only, as it were, have whetted his appetite, and make 
him swallow down the poison of sin by larger and more eager 
draughts than ever. 


LESSON CLXIV. 


The Bible—Wittiam Leccoett. 
‘“‘ This is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation.” 


1. Tuis little book I’d rather own, 
Than all the gold and gems 
That e’er in monarch’s coffers shone, 
Than all their diadems. 


352 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


Nay, were the seas one chrysolite,* 
The earth a golden ball, 

And diamonds all the stars of night, 
This book were worth them all. 

2. How baleful to ambition’s eye 

His blood-wrung spoils must gleam, 

When death’s uplifted hand is nigh, 
His life a vanished dream ! 

Then hear him with his gasping breath 
For one poor moment crave ! 

Fool! wouldst thou stay the arm of death} 
Ask of thy gold to save! 

3. No, no! the soul ne’er found relief 
In glittering hoards of wealth ; 
Gems dazzle not the eye of grief, 
Gold. cannot purchase health : 

But here a blessed balm appears 

To heal the deepest wo ; 
And he that seeks this book in tears, 
His tears shall cease to flow. 
4, Here He who died on Calvary’s tree 
Hath made that promise blest ; 
* Ye heavy-laden, come to me, 
And I will give you rest. 
A bruised reed I will not break, 
-A contrite heart despise ; 
My burden’s light, and all who take 
My yoke, shall win the skies !” 
5. Yes, yes, this little book is worth 
All else to mortals given ; 

For what are all the joys of earth 
Compared to joys of heaven? 
This is the guide our Father gave 

To lead to realms of day ; 
A star whose lustre gilds the grave, 
“ The Light, the Life, the Way.” 


‘** Had she been true, 

Would Heaven make such another world 
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, 

I'd not have sold her for it.”—Shakspeare. 


Ed 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 353 


LESSON CLXV. 


Extract from an Oration delivered at Washington, 1812.— 
By Ricuarp Rusu. 


1. Wuen Britain shall pass from the stage of nations, it will 
be, indeed, with her glory, but it will also be with her shame. 
And with shame, will her annals in nothing more be loaded 
than in this, that, while in the actual possession of much rela- 
tive freedom at home, it has been her uniform characteristick 
to let fall upon the remote subjects of her own empire, an iron 
hand of harsh and vindictive power. 

2. If, as is alleged in her eulogy, to touch her soil proclaims 
emancipation to the slave, it is more true, that when her sceptre 
reaches beyond that confined limit, it thenceforth, as it men- 
acingly waves throughout the globe, inverts the rule that would 
give to her soil this purifying virtue. 

3. Witness Scotland, towards whom her treatment, until 
the union in the last century, was marked, during the longest 
periods, by perfidious injustice or by rude force, circumventing 
her liberties, or striving to cut them down with the sword. 
Witness Ireland, who for five centuries has bled, who, to the 
present hour, continues to bleed, under the yoke of her galling 
supremacy ; whose miserable victims seem at length to have 
laid down, subdued and despairing, under the multiplied inflic- 
tions of her cruelty and rigour. 

4, In vain do her own best statesmen and patriots remon- 
strate against this unjust career! in vain put forth the annual 
efforts of their benevolence, their zeal, their eloquence ; in 
vain touch every spring that interest, that humanity, that the 
maxims of everlasting justice can move, to stay its force and 
mitigate the fate of Irishmen. Alas, for the persecuted ad- 
herents of the cross she leaves no hope! Witness her subject 
millions in the east, where, in the descriptive language of the 
greatest of her surviving orators, ‘‘ sacrilege, massacre, and 
perfidy pile up the sombre pyramids of her renown.” 


y* 
s 


354 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


5. But all these instances are of her fellow-men, of merely 
co-equal, perhaps unknown descent and blood; co-existing 
from all time with herself, and making up only accidentally, a 
part of her dominion. We ought to have been spared. The 
otherwise undistinguishing rigour of this outstretched sceptre 
might still have spared us. 

6. We were descended from her own loins; bone of her 
bone, and flesh of her flesh ; not so much a part of her em- 
pire as a part of herself, her very self. ‘Towards her own it 
might have been expected she would relent. When she in- 
vaded our homes, she saw her own countenance, heard her 
own voice, beheld her own altars! Where was then that 
pure spirit which, she now would tell us, sustains her amidst 
self-sacrifices, in her generous contest for the liberties of other 
nations ? 

7. If it flowed in her nature, here, here it might have de- 
lighted to beam out; here was space for its saving love: the 
true mother chastens, not destroys the child: but Britain, when 
she struck at us, struck at her own image, struck too at the 
immortal principles which her Lockes, her Miltons, and her 
Sydneys taught, and the fell blow severed us for ever, as a 
kindred nation! ‘The crime is purely her own; and upon 
her,, not us, be its consequences and its stain. 


LESSON CLXVI. 
Rolla and Alonzo.—KorTzEBur. 


| Enter Roila, disguised as a monk.] 

Rolla. Inform me, friend, is Alonzo, the Peruvian, con- 
. fined in this dungeon ? 

Sent. He is. 

Rolla. I must speak with him. 

Sent. You must not. 

Rolla. He is my friend. 

Sent. Not if he were your brother. 

Rolla. What is to be his fate ? 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 355 


Sent. He dies at sunrise. 

Rolla. Ha! then Iam come in time ; 

Sent. Just to witness his death. 

Rolla. [advancing towards the door.| Soldier, I must speak 
with him. 

Sent. [pushing him back with his gun.] Back! back! it 
is impossible. 

Rolla. I do entreat you but for one moment. 

Sent. You entreat in vain, my orders are most strict. 

Rolla. Look on this massive wedge of gold! Look on 
these precious gems. In thy land they will be wealth for thee 
and thine, beyond thy hope or wish. ‘Take them, they are 
thine, let me but pass one moment with Alonzo. 

Sent. Away! Wouldst thou corrupt me? Me, an old 
Castilian! I know my duty better. 

Rolla, Soldier! hast thou a wife? 

Sent. I have. 

Rolla. Hast thou children 2 

Sent. Four honest, lovely boys. 

Rolla, Where didst thou leave them ? 

Sent. In my native village, in the very cot where I was 
born. 

Rolla. Dost thou love thy wife and children ? 

Sent. Do I love them? God knows my heart, I do. 

Rolla. Soldier! Imagine thou wast doomed to die a cruel 
death in a strange land, What would be thy last request ? 

Sent. ‘That some of my comrades should carry my dying 
blessing to my wife and children. 

Rolla. What if that comrade were at thy prison door, and 
should there be told, thy fellow-soldier dies at sunrise, yet 
thou shalt not for a moment see him, nor shalt thou bear his 
dying blessing to his poor children, or his wretched wife ; 
what wouldst thou think of him who thus could drive thy _ 
comrade from the door ? 

Sent. How! 

Rolla. Alonzo has a wife and child; and I am come but 
to receive for her, and for her poor babe, the last blessing of 
my friend. 

Sent. Go in. [evit sentinel. | 


356 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 
Rolla. [calls.] Alonzo! Alonzo! 


[Enter Alonzo, speaking as he comes in.] 

Alon. How! is my hour elapsed? Well, I am ready. 

Rolla. Alonzo, know me! 

Alon. Rolla! Heavens! how didst thou pass the guard? 

Rolla. There is not a moment to be lost in words. This 
disguise I tore from the dead body of a friar, as I passed our 
field of battle. It has gained me entrance to thy dungeon ; 
now take it thou, and fly. 

Allon. And Rolla; 

Rolla. Will remain here in thy place. 

Jllon. And die for me! No! Rather eternal tortures 
rack me. 

Rolla. 1 shall not die, Alonzo. It is thy life Pizarro 
seeks, not Rolla’s ; and thy arm may soon deliver me from 
prison. Or, should it be otherwise, I am as a_ blighted 
tree in the desert; nothing lives beneath my shelter. Thou 
art a husband and a father; the being of a lovely wife and 
helpless infant depends upon thy life. Go! go! Alonzo, not 
to save thyself, but Cora and thy child. 

Alon. Urge me not thus, my friend; I am prepared to die 
in peace. ' 

Rolla. To die in peace! devoting her you are pledged to 
live for, to madness, misery, and death ! 

Alon. Merciful heavens! 

Rolla. If thou art yet irresolute, Alonzo, now mark me 
well. Thou knowest that Rolla never pledged his word and 
shrunk from its fulfilment. And here I declare, if thou art 
proudly obstinate, thou shalt have the desperate triumph of © 
seeing Rolla perish by thy side. 

Alon. O Rolla! you distract me! Wear you the robe, 
and though dreadful the necessity, we will strike down the 
guard, and force our passage. 

Rolla. What, the soldier on duty here ? 

Allon. Yes, else seeing two, the alarm will be instant death. 

Rolla. For my nation’s safetv. T would not harm him. 
That soldier, mark me, is aman! All are not men that wear 
the human form. He refused my prayers, refused my gold, 
denying to admit, till his own feelings bribed him. I will not 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 357 


risk a hair of that man’s head, to save my heart-strings from 
consuming fire. But haste! A moment’s farther pause and 
all is lost. 

Alon. Rolla, I fear thy friendship drives me from honour. 
and from right. 

Rolla. Did Roila ever counsel dishonour to his friend ? 
[throwing the friar’s garment over his shoulders.| There! 
conceal thy face; Now God be with thee. 


LESSON CLXVII. 
Human Life-—Dr. Heman Humpurey.—.Vat. Preacher. 


1. Ye men of business and of might, in the high meridian 
of your course, What is your life? Were we to make up 
an estimate from your daily conversation, from the eagerness 
of your worldly pursuits, from your extensive plans, and far- 
reaching expectations, we must suppose you exempted from 
the common lot of mortality. But no estimate can be more 
delusive. 

2. Strip your life, then, of these fictitious and imposing cir- 
cumstances, and what is it but a vapour? What obstacle 
does your fine constitution oppose to the ravages of disease ? 
to the stroke of death? How many firmer have fallen in a 
few days, or hours? You are rejoicing, perhaps, in a degree 
of health which knows but few and trifling interruptions ; and 
so were thousands one week ago, who are now still and BO¥r 
erless, with the nations under ground. 

3. You have, it may be, large and dependant families, na 
so had many of them. But the clinging and sobbing of their 
little ones could not save them. How many, even of your own 
acquaintance, have been called for, when all were ready to say 
they could not be spared! You wish to live to educate your 
children and see them advantageously settled in the world: 
but, What is your life? What longer or better lease have you 
than your neighbour had, whose wife is now a widow and his 
children orphans ? 


358 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


4, But you have talents, and a name, perhaps: you have 
begun to rise, and your influence is increasing: the temple of 
fame shines high and afar in your bright horizon; and there is 
many a glittering eminence between you and the elevation to 
which you ultimately aspire. But, pause fora moment and 
think, What is your life! Where now are some, whose pros- 
pects were brighter, yesterday, than any that can rise to 
your view? and where, to-morrow, will the admirers of others 
look for them but in the grave? Be entreated, then, I beseech 
you, to pause, and answer the apostle’s question, “ What is 
your life ¢” 


LESSON CLXVIII. 
Change is not Reform.—RAnpDoLpu. 


1. Sir, I see no wisdom in making this provision for future 
changes. You must give governments time to operate on the 
people, and give the people time to become gradually assimi- 
lated to their institutions. Almost any thing is better than this 
state of perpetual uncertainty. 

2. A people may have the best form of government that 
the wit of man ever devised, and yet, from its uncertainty 
alone, may, in effect, live under the worst government in the 
world. Sir, how often must I repeat, that change is not re- 
form. I am willing that this new constitution shall stand as 
long as it is possible for it to stand, and that, believe me, is a 
very short time. Sir, it is in vain to deny it. 

3. They may say what they please about the old constitu- 
tion; the defect is not there. It is not in the form of the old 
edifice, neither in the design nor the elevation: it is in the 
material, it is in the people of Virginia. To my knowledge 
that people are changed from what they have been. The four 
hundred men who went out to David were in debt. The par- 
tisans of Cesar were in debt. The fellow-labourers of Cati- 
line were in debt. 

4. And I defy you to show me a desperately indebted peo- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 359 


ple, anywhere, who can bear a regular sober government. I 
throw the challenge to all who hear me. _ I say that the char- 
acter of the good old Virginia planter, the man who owned 
from five to twenty slaves, or less, who lived by hard work, 
and who paid his debts, is passed away. A new order of 
things is come. The period has arrived of living by one’s 
wits ; of living by contracting debts that one cannot pay ; and, 
above all, of living by office-hunting. 

5. Sir, what do we see? Bankrupts, branded bankrupts, 
giving great dinners, sending their children to the most expen- 
sive schools, giving grand parties, and just as well received as 
any body in society. I say, that in such a state of things, the 
old constitution was too good for them; they could not bear 
it. No, sir, they could not bear a freehold suffrage and a 
property representation. 

6. I have always endeavoured to do the people justice ; but 
I will not flatter them; I will not pander to their appetite for 
change. I will do nothing to provide for change. I will not 
agree to any rule of future apportionment, or to any provision 
for future changes, called amendments to the constitution. 
They who love change, who delight in publick confusion, who 
wish to feed the caldron, and make it bubble, may vote, if 
they please, for future changes. 

7. But by what spell, by what formula are you going to bind 
the people to all future time? You may make what entries 
upon parchment you please. Give me a constitution that will 
last for half a century; that is all I wish for. No constitu- 
tion that you can make will last the one half of half a century. 

8. Sir, I will stake any thing short of my salvation, that 
those who are malecontent now, will be more malecontent 
three years hence than they are at this day. I have no favour. 
for this constitution. I shall vote against its adoption, and I 
shall advise all the people of my district to set their faces, ay, 
and their shoulders against it. But if we are to have it, let 
us not have it with its death-warrant in its very face; with the 
sardonick grin of death upon its countenance. 


860 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


al 


LESSON CLXIX. 


The Burial of Sir John JMoore.—WOLFE. 


Sir John Moore, a gallant British general, who was killed in battle at 
Corunna, in Spain, Jan. 16, 1809, by the French. 


1. Nor a drum was heard nor a funeral note, 

As his corse to the ramparts we hurried, 

Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot, 
O’er the grave where our hero we buried. 

We buried him darkly at dead of night, 
The turf with our bay’nets turning, 

By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light, 
And our lanterns dimly burning. 


2. Few and short were the prayers we said, 
And. we spoke not a word of sorrow, 
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead! 
And we bitterly thought on the morrow. 
No useless coffin confined his breast, 
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we bound him, 
But he lay like a warriour taking his rest, 
With his martial cloak around him. 


3. We thought as we heaped the narrow bed, 

And smoothed down his lonely pillow, 

That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head, 
And we far away on the billow. 

Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone, 
And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him, 

But nothing he'll reck if they let him sleep on, 
In the grave where a Briton has laid him. 


4, But half our heavy task was done, 
When the clock told the hour for retiring, 
And we heard the distant and random gun, 
That the foe was sullenly firing. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 36] 


Slowly and sadly we laid him down, 
From the field of his fame, fresh and gory, 
We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, 
But we left him alone with his glory. 


LESSON CLXX. 


Ascent of Mount Washing ton.—T urovore Dwient, Jun.— 
“ Things as they are.” 


1. Tue ascent of Mount Washington is a very laborious 
task, although a great part of its elevation above the sea and 
of Connecticut river, is of course surmounted before ar- 
riving at its base. I was not prepared to find this noble 
eminence rising so abruptly as it does from the side on which 
we approached it. 

2. After leaving our resting-place a few yards, and entering 
a thicker shade of forest-trees, we began a steep ascent, over 
a surface broken by roots, and occasionally by loose stones, 
which soon checked the ardour with which we commenced it. 
It was nearly as steep, I believe, as the side of the cone of Ve- 
suvius, though not as smooth. 

3. How little do we think, in our towns and cities, in the 
midst of our indolent habits, of what the muscles are able to 
perform, or of the pleasure we may derive from their exer- 
cise. ‘Three or four men were now toiling up this ascent. 
Over them the physicians had often bent, I dare say, cogitating 
what names to give the forms of debility by which they had 
been stretched upon their beds, and what nauseous drug they 
should apply to expel once more the evil spirit of luxury. 

4, Now, like a vessel just from the graving beach, after 
setting up her shrouds and backstays, on they went, over 
stones and roots and every obstacle, apparently as insensible 
to fatigue as so many machines. 

5. No opening through the forest is afforded during the 
ascent by which a glimpse may be caught of the world be- 
neath; and it was long before we had any relief from the 
sight of close and leafy trees around and above us. The first 


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362 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


change which we noticed was that in the species of the trees. 
This was instantaneous. 

6. We left, as it were with a single step, the deciduous forest, 
and entered a belt of tall firs, nearly equal in size and thick- 
ness. After walking among these for a few minutes, they 
became suddenly diminished in size, one half o1 more, and 
speedily disappeared entirely, leaving us exposed tv the heat 
of an unclouded sun. 

7. Our guide now cautioned us to look to our steps ; but 
we did not fully appreciate the value of his warning, until we 
had two or three times sunk with one foot into deep crevices 
between the loose rocks on which we were treading, concealed 
by thick evergreen bushes, which were now the only vegetable 
production remaining. 

8. Although these gradually became reduced in size, it was 
not until they had disappeared that we could walk with se- 
curity. The surface had ere this become less steep, but the 
large size of the rocks, in many places, with their ragged 
points and edges, rendered the passage still arduous, and more 
slow than we could have desired. 

9. Before us rose a vast nodule, of a uniformly gray colour 
whose summit appeared at but a short distance ; but when we 
had reached the point, we found another swelling convex be- 
fore us, and another beyond that; so that, having exclaimed 
that the highest peak in the Union was, after all, not so very 
mighty a thing, we at last had to qualify the expression, and 
to say with respect, that Mount Washington had some claim 
to its name. 

10. Indeed, when we began to perceive that we were al- 
ready above the inferiour summits, named after several of the 
other Presidents, which had appeared so great from below 
and at a distance, we felt that we were in the region of real 
exaltation ; and although Washington was still above us, could 
look down upon Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and 
what not. 

11. When we find a spot where man cannot exist, we want 
to see what can; and I began to look round for any thing 
with legs. Black flies, of course, like volunteer jurymen, 
wil] not stay where the absence of mankind does not allow 


NORTH AMERICAN READ*® 363 


them to find employment. Nothing with life could I catch 
or see but one miserable black bug. 

12, One of the earliest accounts of the ascent of this noble 
eminence which I ever read, represented, I remember, that 
the summit was scattered with fragments of the limbs of pine 
or hemlock-trees, bleached by long exposure, and resembling 
stags’ horns. The comparison was a very apt one. ‘These 
bits of wood have, no doubt, been carried up by some of 
the violent gusts of wind which are common in mountainous 
regions, 

13. A gentleman once described one which he saw some 
years ago. AQ roaring was first heard, soon after the tops of 
the forest-trees on the summit of the opposite mountain were 
bent violently down, and then many of their gnarled branches 
were seen flying in the air. The wood found on Mount 
Washington has proved convenient to visiters suffering with 
cold, as it will make an excellent fire. 

14. For ourselves, we suffered most from thirst; and could 
hardly allow our eyes their expected feast upon the boundless 
landscape, until we had demanded of our obliging guide to be 
conducted to the icy springs of which he had spoken. He 
soon brought us to a hole in the rocks, where, only three 
or four feet down, we saw a small bed of ice, which was 
slowly trickling away in tears, under the indirect heat of 
the. sun. ’ 

15. We caught these pure drops, and found them a most 
refreshing draught. ‘This was the highest head of the Am- 
monoosuc river, which we could discover, and we had saved, 
at least, a portion of its intended current a rough and head- 
long descent down a dreary mountain. 

16. We had seen the landscape below several times begin- 
ning to reveal itself through the mist ; but now, when we had 
prepared ourselves to enjoy it, and taken our seats on the 
highest blocks of ragged granite between the Rocky Mount- 
ains, the Ocean, and the North Pole, we found it all concealed 
from our eyes. 

17. Clouds of gray mist and vapour began to drive by us, 
which moistened our garments, scarcely yet dry, and soon 
chilled us to an uncomfortable degree. Now and then acres, 


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364 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


nay, cubick miles of clouds seemed suddenly to be rolled 
away from beneath us, leaving frightful gulfs thousands 
of feet down, yet bottomless ; and these in another moment 
would be filled with mist, heaped up higher than Mount Jef- 
ferson, Adams, Washington, and even ourselves, who were 
last enveloped again, and often concealed from each other’s 
view. 


LESSON CLXXI. 
Character of the Rev. John Wesley. -Dr. Natuan Banes. 


1. Tue characters of men eminent in the walks of literature 
and religion, are an invaluable legacy which the God of prov- 
idence and grace has bequea‘hed to posterity. Though dead, 
they speak to the living, to edification and comfort. 

2. And among those of modern times, who have adorned 
and benefited the age in which they lived, and whose example 
may be exhibited for the imitation of others, none shines with 
brighter Justre than the Rev. John Wesley. Highly gifted by 
nature, studious from his youth to manhood, educated under 
the influence of those principles of Christianity which warm 
the heart and expand the mind, devoted, in all his labours, to 
the best interests of mankind, he became no less eminent for 
his private virtues than for his publick labours. 

3. From that happy era of his life, when he became vitally 
united to Jesus Christ by a living faith, until he finished his 
earthly pilgrimage, his days were filled up in doing good to his 
_ fellow-men, in proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ, in 
diffusing abroad the lights of religion and science, and, by a life 
of rigid self-denial, strict economy, and indefatigable industry, 
he was enabled to accomplish an amount of labour truly aston- 
ishing, and to devote the whole of his surplus income for the 
temporal and spiritual benefit of mankind. 

4. While most others were solicitous to procure for them- 
selves fame or wealth, ease or pleasure, Wesley seemed only 
ambitious to do good. With a heart overflowing with love to 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 365 


God and man, he was ever devising schemes for meliorating 
human misery, for instructing the ignorant, reforming the prof- 
ligate, and leading all within the sphere of his influence to glory 
and immortality. 

5. He was far in advance of the age in which he lived. 
With a mind naturally acute, highly cultivated by science and 
literature, a heart expanded by the genuine principles of Chris- 
tianity, and ever intent in watching for opportunities of useful- 
ness, he soared far above most of his cotemporaries, antici- 
pated the next generation in their plans of active benevolence, 
and thus laid the foundation for those magnificent schemes of 
publick munificence, which now adorn and dignify the Chris- 
tian world. 

6. As a minister of Jesus Christ, he was plain, energetick, 
experimental, and practical. His object was not to captivate 
the imagination by the sparklings of wit, or the strokes of ora- 
tory ; but it was to enlighten the understanding by the sublime 
yet simple truths of the gospel; to reform and enliven the 
heart by the spirit of grace, and to conduct all with whom he 
nad intercourse to that knowledge of God which is eternal life. 

7. Though he doubtless exhibited those spots of infirmity 
which are inseparable from humanity, yet his life was irre- 
proachable in the sight of God and man, and his death, at the 
age of fourscore years and eight, gave an illustrious testimony 
in favour of that religion which had been the support and sol- 
ace of his life. Having filled up his days in acts of devo- 
tion to his God, and in deeds of justice and benevolence to 
his fellow-men, as a ripe shock of corn, he was finally gathered 
into the garner of his heavenly Father, proclaiming with his 
dying breath, the best of all is, “ God is with us !” 

8. Let those who read this short and imperfect sketch of 
one of the most holy and eminent men of his day, remember 
that the same benignant Being who so highly favoured and so 
signally owned Wesley, is ever ready to bestow upon them the 
same blessings, provided they improve their talents and ,oppor- 
tunities with the same conscientious diligence. 


366 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CLXXII. 
Weehawken.—F. G. Hatueck. 


]. WEEHAWKEN! in thy mountain scenery yet, 
All we adore of Nature, in her wild 
And frolick hour of infancy, is met ; 
And never has a summer’s morning smiled 
Upon a lovelier scene, than the full eye 
Of the enthusiast revels on, when bigh 


2. Amidst thy forest solitudes, he climbs 
O’er crags that proudly tower above the deep, 
And knows that sense of danger, which sublimes 
The breathless moment; when his daring step 
Is on the verge of the cliff, and he can hear 
The low dash of the wave with startled ear, 


3. Like the death-musick of his coming doom, 
And clings to the green turf with desperate force, 
As the heart clings to life ; and when resume 
The currents in his veins their wonted course, 
There lingers a deep feeling, like the moan 
Of wearied ocean, when the storm is gone. 


4. In such an hour, he turns, and on his view, 
Ocean, and earth, and heaven, burst before him ; 
Clouds slumbering at his feet, and the clear blue 
Of summer’s sky, in beauty bending o’er him ; 
The city bright below; and far away, 
Sparkling in golden light, his own romantick bay. 


5. Tall spire, and glittering roof, and battlement, 
And banners floating in the sunny air, 
And white sails o’er the calm blue waters bent, 
Green isle, and circling shore, are blended there, 
In wild reality. When life is old, 
And many a scene forgot, the heart will hold 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 367 


6. Its memory of this ; nor lives there one, 
Whose infant breath was drawn, or boyhood days 
Of happiness were passed beneath that sun, 
That in his manhood prime can calmly gaze 
Upon that bay, or on that mountain stand, 
Nor feel the prouder of his native land. 


LESSON CLXXiil. 


Extract from an Oration, delivered July 4, 1828, by Eber 
Wheaton, Esq., at Masonick Hall, before the several Civick 
Societies of New York. 


1. Tue war between England and her transatlantick colo- 
nies must be considered the proudest triumph of democracy 
over aristocracy which the world has ever beheld. From the 
battle of Hastings to the accession of the house of Hanover, 
the immunities of princes had scarcely been questioned. The - 
hereditary sovereigns of Europe had become warmly and se- 
curely nested, and, as they imagined, in a great degree, inde- 
pendent of that portion of the community which originally 
created them for a check upon a powerful and increasing 
nobility. 

2. The sanctitude of kings, the divine origin of their pre- 
rogatives, the peculiar inherent descendable qualities of the 
blood royal, had become fundamental and settled axioms of 
government; and the propriety and necessity of a distinct, su- 
periour, and privileged order of men, who should act for the 
governed in all cases, had been so long and so repeatedly 
proclaimed, as to assume the force of law, and seemed ready 
to exterminate the last vestige of liberty. 

3. If, in a few instances, resistance to these absurd and ty- 
rannical principles had been attempted, the fatality which every- 
where attended the efforts of republicans, and the misery which 
those efforts brought upon them, served only to show the 
ascendency of royalty and the feebleness of democracy, and 
to strike with mournful terrour the patriot and philanthropist. 


368 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


But the American revolution gave an unexpected and conclu- 
sive demonstration of the weakness and sophistry of these 
doctrines, and shook to their very bases the tottering thrones 
of despots throughout the world. 

4, Though the blood of a Wallace had failed to purchase 
freedom for his country, and the conquest of Scotland had 
added glory to the triumphs of an Edward; though the short- 
lived flame which burst from the enthusiasm of a Cromwell 
had served only to render still darker the succeeding political 
obscuration ; though the vices of a Stuart had, like the pesti- 
lential soil of Egypt, produced their swarms of devouring lo- 
custs, gilded with titles of nobility; the battles of Saratoga, 
Monmouth, and Yorktown, proclaimed, in language not to be 
misunderstood, “that all men are born equal ;” that the right 
to govern must be based upon the will of the governed; and 
that, in this country, no distinctions can be tolerated, save those 
which flow from merit and ability. 

5. The most absolute necessity could alone excuse a deadly 
feud between the parent and its legitimate offspring ; the most 
positive acts of oppression could alone justify an appeal to 
arms by the colonies, and the melancholy consequences, which 
in Europe had followed every opposition to royal authority 
were sufficient to shake the resolution of the most inflexible 
patriot, and excite fears in the breasts of the most enthusias- 
tick republicans. Yet the conduct of Britain was a full and 
undeniable warrant for the former, and the patriotism and cour- 
age of our fathers were adequate to resist the influences of the 
latter. 

6. The story of their resistance, their sufferings and suc- 
cess, has often been told. Their deeds stand recorded upon 
the never-dying pages of history, and the remembrance of their 
virtues is deeply engraven in the affections of their grateful 
posterity. Juet not ambition seek to draw from thence an in- 
demnification for the blood she has wantonly shed: let not 
corruption here expect to find a precedent for her justification, 
traitors an excuse for their infamy, or cowards an apology for 
their fears. 

7. Tell me! shades of Hancock, Franklin, and Jeffersen ! 
was it to gratify a narrow and selfish policy, or a disposit: @ 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 369 


to cavil at imaginary wrongs, that you “ dared within the reach 
of majesty” to pronounce the sentence of “ eternal separation 
from Britain,” and to ‘ blow the biast of freedom throughout 
a subject continent ?” 

8. ‘Tell me, ye spotless spirits of Warren and Montgomery ! 
was it for the visionary hope of having your names enrolled 
among heroes and conquerors, that you offered your bosoms 
to the shafts of battle, and gave your lives a ransom for your 
country? Tell me, thou consecrated Father of my country, 
and successful defender of my country’s rights ! was it to erect 
a palace, for some future despot, that you raised the standard 
of opposition to a foreign domination, and staked your all upon 
the doubtful contest for national supremacy? No! It was 
a nation’s wrongs inspired your zeal; a nation’s rights im- 
pelled you to the field: “ Liberty unsheathed your swords, 
necessity stained them, and victory alone returned them.” 


LESSON CLXXIV. 
Al Scene in the Catskill Mountains.—G. MELLEN. 


1. We first came to the verge of the precipice, from 
which the water takes its leap upon a platform that projects 
with the rock many feet over the chasm. Here we gazed 
into the dell and the basin into which the stream pours itself 
from the beetling cliff. But the prospect from this point is 
far less thrilling than from below; and we accordingly began 
our descent. 

2. Winding round the crags, and following a foot-path be- 
tween the overhanging trees, we gradually, and with some 
difficulty, descended so far as to have a fine view of the sta- 
tion which we had just left. ‘The scene here is magnificent 
beyond description. 

3. Far under the blackened canopy of everlasting rock, 
that shoots above to an alarming extent over the abyss, the 
eye glances round a vast and regular amphitheatre, which 
seems.to be the wild assembling-place of all the spirits of the 

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370 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


storms, so rugged, so deep, so secluded, and yet so threaten- 
ing does it appear ! 

4. Down from the midst of the cliff that overarches this 
wonderful excavation, and dividing in the midst of gloom that 
seems to settle within it, comes the foaming torrent, splen- 
didly relieved upon the black surface of the enduring walls, 
and throwing its wreaths of mist along the frowning ceiling. 

5. Following the guide that had brought us thus far down 
the chasm, we passed into the amphitheatre, and, moving un- 
der the terrifick projection, stood in the centre of this sublime 
and stupendous work ; the black, ironbound rocks behind us, 
and the snowy cataract springing between us and the boiling 
basin, which still lay under our feet. 

6. Here the scene was unparalleled. Here seemed to be 
the theatre for a people to stand in, and behold the prodigies 
and fearful wonders of the Almighty, and feel their own in- 
significance. Here admiration and astonishment come un- 
bidden over the soul, and the most obdurate heart feels that 
there is something to be grateful for. 

7. Indeed, the scene from this spot is so sublime, and so 
well calculated to impress the feelings with a sense of the 
power and grandeur of nature, that, apart from all other con- 
siderations, it is worthy of long journeying and extreme toil to 
behold it. 

8. Having taken refreshment, very adroitly managed to 
be conveyed to us from above by John, whom, by the way, I 
would name as an excellent guide as well as a reputable boy, 
we descended to the extreme depth of the ravine, and, with 
certain heroick ladies, who somehow dared the perils of the 
path, we gazed from this place upon the sheet of water, fal- 
ling from a height of more than two hundred and fifty feet. 

9. This is a matter of which Niagara would not speak 
lightly ; and there is wanting only a heavy fall of water to 
make this spot not only magnificent, for that it is now, but 
terribly sublime. Mountains ascend and overshadow it; 
crags and precipices project themselves in menacing assem- 
blage all about, as though frowning over a ruin which they are 
only waiting some fiat to make yet more appalling. 

10. Nature has hewed out a resting-place for man, where 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 371 


he may linger, and gaze, and admire! Below him she 
awakens her thunder, and darts her lightning ; above him she 
- lifts still loftier summits, and round him she flings her spray 
and her rainbows! 


LESSON CLXXY. 


Temper ance Appeal to Youth. AusTIN DickInson.— 
National Preacher. 


1. Be persuaded to strict temperance, by a consideration 
of its happy influence on the health and vigour of both mind 
and body. ‘The most eminent physicians bear uniform testi- 
mony to this propitious effect of entire abstinence. And the 
Spirit of inspiration has recorded, “ He that striveth for the 
mastery, is temperate in all things.” 

2. Many striknmg examples might be adduced. The 
mother of Samson, that prodigy of human strength, was in- 
structed by an angel of God to preserve him from the slightest 
touch of ‘“ wine or strong drink, or any unclean thing.” And 
Luther, who burst the chains of half Europe, was as remarka- 
ble for temperance, as for great bodily and intellectual vigour. 

3. “It often happened,” says his biographer, “ that for 
several days and nights he locked himself up in his study, 
and took no other nourishment than bread and water, that he 
might the more uninterruptedly pursue his labours.” Sir 
Isaac Newton, also, while composing his Treatise on Light, a 
work requiring the greatest clearness of intellect, abstained 
not only from spirit, but from all stimulating food. 

4. The immortal Edwards, too, repeatedly records his own 
experience of the happy effect of strict temperance, both on 
mind and body. And the recent reformations from moderate 
drinking, in different parts. of the land, have revealed numer- 
ous examples of renovated health and spirits in consequence 
of the change. But net to multiply instances, let any youth 
oppressed with heaviness of brain, or dulness of intellect, 
thoroughly try the experiment of temperance in all things, 


372 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


united with great activity, and he will himself be surprised at 
the happy effect. 

5. The liabit of temperance, being closely allied to other 
virtues, will secure for you the respect and confidence of the 
best part of the community, and thus lead to your more ex- 
tensive usefulness, as well as prosperity and happiness. 

6. The youth who comes up to the resolution of entire ab- 
stinence for ever, and persuades others so to do, gives evi- 
dence of moral courage, gives evidence that he has the power 
of self-denial, gives evidence of an intellect and moral sense 
predominating over appetite, and selfishness, and the laugh 
of fools; and such is the youth whom a virtuous and intelligent 
community will delight to honour. 


LESSON CLXXVI. 


Stanzas ; “ Iam not what I have been.”,—Miss C. Emory. 
New York Mirror. 


1. 1 am not what I have been! pain 
Has stolen the roses from my cheek, 
And never can I know again 
The health their hues were wont to speak. 
2. I am not what I have been! care 
Has left its traces on my brow ; 
What matters it? bright smiles are there, 
To hide the gloom that lies below. 
3. I am not what I have been! Time 
His work of wasting too has done ; 
My life is in its earliest prime, 
But ah! my heart’s glad youth is gone. 
4. I am not what I have been! life 
For me has lost its every charm; 
I’m weary of wild passion’s strife, — 
I can no longer brave its storm. 
5. Iam not what I have been! Fate 
On me has laid her heaviest doom ; 
And now in patience I await 
Her last, her kindliest gift, a tomb! 


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LESSON CLXXVII. 
Forest Worship.—W. Gitmore Simms, Esa. 


1. Tue teacher of a faith as simple as persuasive, was 
about to address them, in the secluded grove druidically con- 
ceived for its present purpose. The venerable oaks, a goodly 
and thick-clustering assemblage, forming a circle around, 
had left an opening in the centre, concealed from the eye, ex- 
cept when fairly penetrated by the spectator. 

2. Their branches meeting above afforded a roof, less 
regular and gaudy, indeed, but far more grand, majestick, and, 
we may add, becoming, for purposes like the present, than the 
dim and decorated cathedral, the workmanship of human 
hands. Its application to this use, at this time, recalled forci- 
bly to the mind of the youth, the forms and features of that 
primitive worship, when the trees bent with gentle murmurs 
above the heads of the rapt worshippers, and a visible Deity 
dwelt in the shadowed valleys, and whispered an auspicious 
acceptance of their devotions in every breeze. 

3. He could not help acknowledging, as, indeed, must all 
who have ever been under the influence of such a scene, that 
in this, more properly and perfectly than in any other temple, 
may the spirit of man recognise and hold familiar and free 
converse with the spirit of his Creator. There, indeed, 
without much effort of the imagination, might be beheld the 
present God; the trees, hills, and vales, the wild flower and 
the murmuring water, all the work of his hands, attesting his 
power, keeping their purpose, and obeying, without scruple, 
the order of those seasons, for the sphere and operation of 
which he originally designed them. 

4. They are mute lessoners ; and the example which, in 
the progress of their existence, year after year, they regularly 
exhibit, might well persuade the more responsible represent- 
ative of the same power, the propriety of a like obedience, 
The devotions commenced with a hymn, two lines of which, 
at a time, having been read and repeated by the preacher, fur- 


374 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


nished a guide to the congregation ; the female portion gener- 
ally uniting to sing, in a style doubly effective from the utter 
absence of all ornament in the musick. 

5. The strains were just such as the old shepherds, out 
among the hills, tending their charges, might have been heard 
to pour forth, almost unconsciously, to that God who some- 
times condescended to walk along with them. After this 
was over, the preacher rose, and read, with a voice as clear 
as unaffected, the twenty-third Psalm of David, the images 
of which are borrowed chiefly from the life in the wilderness, 
and were therefore not unsuited to the ears of those to whom 
they were now addressed. 

6. Without proposing any one portion of this performance 
as a text or subject for commentary, he delivered a discourse, 
simply filling out, for the benefit of those about him, those 
beautiful portraits of a good shepherd and a guardian God, which 
the Psalm had furnished ready to his hands. He spoke of 
the dependance of the creature, instanced, as it is daily, by a 
thousand wants and exigencies, for which, unless by the care 
and under the countenance of Providence, he could never of 
himself provide. 

7. He narrated the dangers of the forest, imaging by this 
figure the mazes and mysteries of life; the difficulty, nay, 
the almost utter impossibility, unless by his sanction, of pro- 
curing sustenance and of counteracting those innumerable in- 
cidents by fell and flood, which, in a single moment, defeat 
the cares of the hunter and the husbandman, setting at naught. 
his industry, destroying his fields and cattle, blighting his 
crops, and tearing up with the wing of the hurricane even the 
cottage which gives shelter to his little ones. 

8. He dwelt largely and long upon those numberless and 
sudden events in the progress of life and human circum- 
stance, over which, as they can neither be foreseen nor com- 
bated by man, he has no. control; and appealed for him to 
the Great Shepherd, who alone could do both. Having shown 
the necessity of such an appeal and reference, he next pro- 
ceeded to describe the gracious willingness which had at all 
times been manifested by the Creator, to. extend the required 
protection. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 375 


9. He adverted to the fortunes of all the patriarchs in sup- 
port of his position; and singling out innumerable instances 
of this description, confidently assured them, from these ex- 
amples, that the same Shepherd was not unwilling to provide 
for them in like manner. Under his protection, he assured 
them, “ they should not want.” 

10. He dilated at length, and with a graceful dexterity, 
upon the truths, the simple and mere truths of God’s provi- 
dence, and the history of his people, imbodied by David in 
the beautiful strain which he had read them. It was poetry, 
indeed, sweet poetry ; but it was the poetry of truth and not 
of fiction. Did not history sustain its every particular? Had 
not the Shepherd made them to lie down in green pastures ; 
had he not led them beside the still waters; restored he not 
their souls ; did he not lead them, for his name’s sake, in the 
paths of righteousness, and though at length they walked 
through the valley where death had cast his never-departing 
shadow, was he not with them still, keeping them even from 
the fear of evil? 

11. He furnished them with the rod and staff; he prepared 
the repast for them, even in the presence of their enemies ; 
he anointed their heads with oil, and blessed them with quiet 
and abundance, until the cup of their prosperity was running 
over; until they even ceased to doubt that goodness and 
mercy should follow them all the days of their life ; and, with 
a proper consciousness of the source whence this great good 
had arisen, they determined, with the spirit not less of wise 
than of worthy men, to follow his guidance, and thus dwell in 
the house of the Lord for ever. 

12. Such did the old man describe the fortunes of the old 
patriarchs to have been; and such, having first entered into 
like obligations, and pursuing them with the same fond fixed- 
ness of purpose, did he promise should be the fortunes of all 
who then listened to his voice. As he proceeded to his pero- 
ration, he grew warmed with the broad and boundless subject 
before him, and his declamation became alike bold and 
beautiful. 

13. All eyes were fixed upon him, and not a whisper from 
the still murmuring woods which girded them in, was pércep- 


376 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


tible to the senses of that pleased and listening assembly. 
The services of the morning were closed by a paraphrase, in 
part, of the psalm from which his discourse had been drawn ; 
and as this performance, i in its present shape, is not to be 
found, we believe, in any of the books devoted to such pur- 
poses, it is but fair to conclude that the old man, not unwilling, 
in his profession, to employ every engine for the removal of 
all stubbornness from the hearts of those he addressed, some- 
times invoked poetry to smile upon his devotions, and wing 
his aspirations for the desired flight. 


SHEPHERD’S HYMN. 


14. Oh, when I rove the desert waste, and ’neath the hot sun 
pant, 
The Lord shall be my shepherd then, he will not let me 
want, 
He’ll lead me where the pastures are of soft and shady 
green, 
And where the gentle waters rove, the quiet hills between 
.5. And when the savage shall pursue, and in his grasp I sink, 
He will prepare the feast for me, and bring the cooling 
drink, 
And save me harmless from his hands, and strengthen me 
in toil, 
And bless my home and cottage lands, and crown my head 
with oil. 
16. With such a Shepherd to protect, to abide and guard me 
still, 
And bless my heart with every good, and keep from every 


sit: I shall not turn aside, and scorn his kindly care, 
But keep the path he points me out, and dwell for ever 
there. 


LESSON CLXXVIII. 


Extract from a Funeral Oration on the Death of General 
Washington.—Dr. J. M. Mason. 


1. Ir must ever be difficult to compare the merits of Wash- 
ington’s characters, because he always appeared greatest in 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 377 


that which he last sustained. Yet if there is a preference, it 
must be assigned to the Lieutenant General of the armies of 
America. 

2. Not because the duties of that station were more ardu- 
ous than those which he had often performed, but because it 
more fully displayed his magnanimity. While others become 
great by elevation, Washington becomes greater by conde- 
scension. 

3. Matchless patriot! to stoop, on publick motives, to an 
inferiour appointment, after possessing and dignifying the high- 
est offices! Thrice-favoured country, which boasts of such 
a citizen! We gaze with astonishment; we exult that we are 
Americans. -We augur every thing great, and good, and happy. 

4. But whence this sudden horrour? What means that 
cry of agony? Oh! ’tis the shriek of America! The fairy 
vision is fled: WasnineTon is no more! ‘ How are the 
mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished !” 

5. Daughters of America, who erst prepared the festa 
bower and the Jaurel wreath, plant now the cypress-grove, and 
water it with tears. ‘“ How are the mighty fallen, and the 
weapons of war perished !” 

6. The death of Wasninetron, Americans, has revealed 
the extent of our loss. It has given us the final proof that 
we never mistook him. Take his affecting testament, and 
read the secrets of his soul. Read all the power of domes- 
tick virtue. Read his strong love of letters and of liberty. 

7. Read his fidelity to republican principle, and his jealousy 
of national character. Read his devotedness to you in his 
military bequests to near relations. ‘These swords,” they 
are the words of Washington, “ these swords are accompanied 
with an injunction not to unsheath them for the purpose of 
shedding blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of 
their country and its rights; and in the latter case, to keep 
them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands, 
to the relinquishment thereof.” 

8. In his acts, Americans, you have seen the man. In the 
complicated excellence of character he stands alone. Let na 
future Plutarch attempt the iniquity of parallel. Let no sol 
dier of fortune; let no usurping conqueror; let not Alexande: 


378 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


or Cesar; let not Cromwell or Bonaparte ; let none among 
the dead or the living, appear in the same picture with WasH- 
INGTON; or let them appear as the shade to his light. 

9. On this subject, my countrymen, it is for others to spec- 
ulate, but it is for us to feel. Yet in proportion to the severity 
of the stroke ought to be our thankfulness that it was not in- 
flicted sooner. ‘Through a long series of years has God pre- 
served our Washington a publick blessing ; and now that he 
has removed him for ever, shall we presume to say, What 
doest thou ? 

10. Never did the tomb preach more powerfully the de- 
pendance of all things on the will of the Most High. The 
greatest of mortals crumble into dust the moment he com- 
mands, Return, ye children of men. Washington was but 
the instrument of abenignant God. He sickens, he dies, that 
we may learn not to trust in men, nor to make flesh our arm. 

11. But though Washington is dead, Jehovah lives. God 
of our fathers! be our God, and the God of our children! 
Thou art our refuge and our hope ; the pillar of our strength ; 
the wall of our defence, and our unfading glory ! 

12. Americans! This God, who raised up Washington 
and gave you liberty, exacts from you the duty of cherishing 
it with a zeal according to knowledge. Never sully, by apathy 
or by outrage, your fair inheritance. Risk not, for one mo- 
ment, on visionary theories, the solid blessings of your lot. 
To you, particularly, O youth of America! applies the solemn 
charge. In all the perils of your country, remember Wash- 
_ ington. 

13. The freedom of reason and of right has been handed 
down to you on the point of the hero’s sword. Guard with 
veneration the sacred deposite. The curse of ages will rest 
upon you, O youth of America! if ever you surrender to 
foreign ambition, or domestick lawlessness, the precious liber- 
ties for which Washington fought, and your fathers bled. 

14. I cannot part with you, fellow-citizens, without urging 
the long remembrance of our present assembly. This day 
we wipe away the reproach of republicks, that they know not 
how to be grateful. In your treatment of living patriots, ree 
call your love and your regret of WasHINGTON. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 379 


15. Let not future inconsistency charge this day with hy- 
pocrisy. Happy America, if she gives an instance of uni- 
versal principle in her sorrows for the man, “ first in war, first 
in peace, and first in the affections of his country !” 


LESSON CLXXIX. 
The National Character.—Gen. Hayne.—Southern Review. 


1. It is due to the country, that not a single trophy of the 
revolution should be suffered to be destroyed, and we should 
be sorry to see recorded on one of them, the memorable in- 
scription on the beautiful naval monument in Washington, 
“ mutilated by Britons.” We would, if we could, preserve 
them all, in their simple majesty and beauty, to kindle in the 
bosom of our American youth, to thé latest posterity, the sa- 
cred glow of patriotism. We have always considered the 
moral and political lessons, taught by the history of the revo- 
lution, as the most precious inheritance derived from our 
fathers. 

2. The exploits of our heroes, the wisdom of our states- 
men, constitute a portion of our national wealth, which, we 
had fondly hoped, would have withstood the assaults of time 
itself. If we were called upon to decide by what measures - 
those who live in the present age could confer the greatest 
blessings on posterity, we should say, without hesitation, by 
leaving behind them those great examples of wisdom and of 
virtue, which are the most enduring monuments of national 
greatness. 

3. To the youth of any country, and especially of a free 
country, what incentive to noble actions can be offered, equal 
to the examples of the poets, orators, statesmen, and warriours, 
who have immortalized the country which gave them birth, and 
adorned the age in which they lived. It is not, therefore, 
without feelings of mortification and regret, that we have wit- 
nessed, of late years, repeated attempts to strip from American 
lustory some of the most brilliant trophies of the revolution. 


380 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


4, It may be true, that our history, like all others, is * of a 
mingled yarn of truth and falsehood,” but we fear that any 
person who employs himself, at this day, in picking out the 
threads, will impair the beauty, if he does not destroy the 
strength of the fabrick. It is too late now, to make a fresh 
distribution of the honours awarded by their cotemporaries to 
he worthies of the revolution. 

5. The partners of their toils, the very witnesses of their 
¢xploits, are slumbering in the dust, and we may be assured, 
that, if with the feeble and glimmering lights we now possess, 
we attempt to correct the supposed errours in our revolution- 
ary history, we shall leave it much more imperfect than we 
found it. stents 

6. Let all Americans, therefore, unite in guarding the fair 
fame of the patriots and sages, whose names are embalmed 
n our history, as we would guard the bones of our fathers. 
Let the chaplet which gratitude has bound around their brows, 
be as enduring as the blessings we owe to their exertions. 


LESSON CLXXxX. 
The Bucket—SamueL Woopwortn. 


1. IJow dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, 

When fond recollection presents them to view ! 

The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild wood, 
And ev’ry loved spot which my infancy knew ; 

The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it, - 
The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell; 

The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it, 
And e’en the yude bucket which hung in the well! 

The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 

The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well! 


2. That moss-covered vesse] I hail as a treasure ; 
For often, at noon, when returned from the field, 
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, 
The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 381 


How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing, 
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell ; 

Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, 
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well ; 

The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 

The moss-covered bucket arose from the well. 


3. How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, 
As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips! 
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, 
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. 
And now, far removed from the loved situation, 
The tear of regret will intrusively swell, 
As fancy reverts to my father’s plantation, 
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well; 
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, 
The moss-covered bucket, which hangs in his well. 


LESSON CLXXXI. 


General Abercrombie’s Expedition against Ticonderoga—~ 
Descent of Lake George.—Wittiam L. Stone. 


1. Tue campaign against Canada, of 1758, opened with 
great apparent spirit. Not only did the hostile incursions of 
the Canadian Indians continue very annoying to the frontier 
settlements, but the mother country and the colonies alike felt 
that they had much to accomplish to repair the losses and dis- 
appointments of the two preceding years. Indeed, the re- 
peated failures of Braddock, and Webb, and Lord Loudon, 
had chagrined and exasperated the nation. 

2. The elder Pitt even declared in parliament that there 
appeared to be a determination on the part of the officers in 
command, against any vigorous execution of the service of the 
country ; and when, during the same year, the king was re- 
monstrated with on appointing so young and rash a madman 
as Wolfe to conduct the meditated expedition against Quebec, 


382 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


the sturdy Brunswicker vexedly replied, “If he is mad, I 
hope he will bite some of my generals.” 

3. lt was under these circumstances that England deter- 
mined to put forth her whole energies in the three formidable 
expeditions this year projected, viz: against Louisburg, under 
General Amherst; against Fort Du Quesne, on the Ohio; 
and the third and principal division against Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point, with a view of striking a blow upon Montreal. 
It is this latter campaign with which the progress of our story 
is connected. 

4. For the prosecution of this high emprise, an army of 
regular troops and provincials was assembled, unprecedented 
for its numbers in the annals of American warfare. Lord 
Loudon having been recalled, the command devolved upon 
General Abercrombie, who determined to lead the expedition 
in person, ‘The rendezvous of the formidable army destined 
upon this service, was at the head of Lake George, or Lake 
St. Sacrament, as it was called by the French, from the re- 
markable purity and transparency of its waters, which were 
for a long time conveyed to France for the services of the 
Catholick altar. After it came indisputably into the posses- 
sion of the English, it was baptized anew, in honour of the 
Brunswickers. 

5. This lake is thirty-five miles long, with a mean breadth 
not exceeding two. Its elevation is one hundred and sixty 
feet above the waters of Champlain, into which it rushes 
through a rocky strait of two and a half miles at its Lorth- 
eastern extremity. Its location is in the high northern region 
of New York, imbosomed deep among the mountains. The 
summer landscape from its head is indescribably grand and 
beautiful. At the distance of fourteen miles, the lake turns to 
the right, stretching off eastwardly, and is lost among the 
mountains. 

6. The prospect, therefore, resembles a stupendous amphi- 
theatre, the mountains composing which rise by steep and pre- 
cipitous acclivities to the height of more than a thousand feet. 
On the right, the French Mountain rears its lofty crest, in 
sullen grandeur, to an elevation of fourteen hundred feet, slo- 
ping off gradually to the west, until its base is laved by the 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 383 


bright waters of St. Sacrament. In some instances the mounts 
ain summits are bald, and the rocks stand forth from their 
sides in bold and naked relief. 

7. But for the most part, the heights are covered to their 
tops with deciduous trees and shrubs, plentifully sprinkled with 
the darker shades of the evergreens. At the point where the 
lake takes a more eastern direction, a bay sets up among the 
hills to the northwest, beyond which, as far as vision extends, 
hills rise above hills, surprising for their loftiness, till at length 
their peaked summits are lost in the clouds. 

8. The bosom of the lake itself is adorned with multitudi- 
nous little islands, the fresh verdure of which, in summer, be- 
ing, with the surrounding mountains, reflected back with pecu- 
liar vividness from the pure element, adds greatly to the pic- 
turesque effect, by thus mingling the beautiful with the rugged 
and sublime. Wild and desolate as this romantick region 
then was, and yet continues, its shores have nevertheless been 
consecrated with more blood than any other spot in America. 

9. For a long period it was the Thermopyle through which 
alone the French supposed they must pass in their repeated 
attempts upon the extensive and fertile valley of the Hudson. 
And fierce and bloody were the conflicts for its possession. 
Even to this day, in the gloomy solitude of the forest which 
overshadows the Bloody Pond, or among the crumbling ruins 
of Fort William Henry, “ the spectres of the gallant but for- 
gotten dead; the spirits of the Britain and the Gaul; the 
hardy American and the plumed Indian, seem to start up and 
meet the traveller at every step.” 

10. The embarcation took place early on a clear and beau- 
tiful morning of July. The spectacle was full of life and 
animation, and withal very imposing. The forces collected 
on the occasion numbered seven thousand British troops of 
the line, and upwards of ten thousand provincials, exclusive 
of the many hundreds of non-combatants necessarily in the 
train of such an army. 

1!. The flotilla for their transportation to Ticonderoga, at 
the farther extremity of the lake, consisted of nine hundred 
batteaux, and one hundred and thirty-five whale-boats, together 
with a sufficient number of rafts to convey the heavy stores 


384 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


and ammunition, and the artillery to cover the landing of the 
troops, in the neighbourhood of the works first to be invested. 
The utmost confidence of success inspired both officers and 
men, and all was activity and gayety in getting in motion, from 
the instant the reveille started the armed host from their repose 
at the dawn, until the embarcation was complete. 

12. So sure were all of an easy victory, that they went 
forth as to a grand review, or the pageant of a national festi- 
val. A part of England’s “ chivalry was gathered there,” of 
whom was the accomplished Lord Howe, distinguished alike 
for his generosity, his gallantry, and his courage. Many other 
young noblemen, of high bearing and promise, were likewise 
there ; together with a still greater number of nature’s noble- 
men, in the persons of New England’s hardy sons, both in 
commission and in the ranks. 

13. Nor were the spirited colonists of New York unrepre- 
sented. Their sons, both of English and Dutch descent, 
sustained a generous rivalry in their chivalrous bearing, and 
evinced an equal readiness to “rush to glory or the grave,” 
for the honour of their country. These proud-spirited Ameri- 
cans, with the blood of freemen hotly coursing through their 
- veins, neither knew nor cared whether they were descended 
from the Talbots, the John of Gaunts, or the Percys; but 
their hearts beat as high, and their souls were as brave, and 
their sinewy arms could strike as heavy blows, as those who 
could trace the longest ancestry, or wore the proudest crest. 

14. There, also, was the proud Highland regiment of Lord 
John Murray, with their bagpipes, their tartan breacan, fringed 
down their brawny legs, and their black plumes in their bon- 
nets. What an array, and what a splendid armament, for a 
small and quiet lake, sequestered so deep in the interiour of 
what was then a woody continent, and imbedded in a wild and 
zemote chasm, among a hundred mountains ! 

15. Who would have supposed that this lonely and inhos- 
pitable region, “ where there were nothing but rocks, and soli- 
tudes, and bleak mountains to contend for, would have been 
the theatre on which the disputes between the rival courts of 
St. James and St. Cloud should be decided; and on which 
the embattled hosts of Europe, at the distance of a thousand 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 385 


leagues from their respective homes, should have joined in the 
bloody conflict for empire !” 

16. Lord [Lowe and his suite had not joined the army since 
the removal of the headquarters to Fort William Henry ;_ but 
having reached Fort Edward from Albany on the preceding 
evening, purposed to take horse early, and ride the remaining 
ten miles on the morning of the embarcation. Emerging 
from the forest intervening between the two fortresses, and 
breaking suddenly, and for the first time, in full view of the 
St. Sacrament,.an hour before the sun had peered above the 
eastern range of the mountains, he involuntarily checked his 
impatient steed, now rendered more restiff by the din of mar- 
tial musick swelling upon the air in advance, and sat mo- 
tionless, gazing upon the gorgeous splendours that flashed 
around, first burnishing the lofty summits of the mountains 
with gold, and then, by degrees, illumining the whole amphi- 
theatre in a blaze of unequalled beauty and brightness. 

17. The morning being perfectly clear, after the light mists 
which floated gracefully along the sides of the hills had disap- 
peared, the sky glowed brighter and purer than many of them 
had ever seen it. Before them, at their feet, lay the crystal 
waters of the lake like a mirror of molten silver; the green 
islands tufted with trees, fluating, as_it were, in the clear ele- 
ment. In the camp, on the open esplanade by the shore, was 
the mustering of troops, the hurrying to and fro of the officers, 
the rattling of armour, the neighing of steeds, with all the in- 
harmonious confusion which such a scene must necessarily 
present. 

18. Beyond, wide spread upon the lake, were the thousand 
barges, shifting and changing places as convenience required, 
the banners of the different regiments streaming gayly in the 
breeze, while the swell of cheerful voices, the rolling of the 
drums, the prolonged and exhilarating notes of the trumpet, as 
they resounded among the mountains, combined to throw over 
the whole wild region an air of enchantment, which bound the 
ardent military amateur as with a spell. 

19. Indeed, the whole of this memorable passage of Lake 
St. Sacrament resembled more the pageant of a grand aquat- 
ick gaia, or a dream of romance, than a chapter of real life. 


R 


386 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Stretching down the lake, the scenery partook of the same 
wild and glorious character, and every mile of their progress 
disclosed new objects of wonder, or presented fresh sources 
of delight. 

20. The tops and shaggy sides of the mountains afforded 
new phases with every turn, while the relative positions of the 
boats were changing continually as they shot forward among 
the islands studding the whole distance of the lake ; and hills, 
rocks, islands, every thing, were reflected back, fresh and 
beautiful as nature had made them. It was a day of unmin- 
gled pleasure. A fine elastick breeze swept through the gorges. 
of the mountains, serving to brace the nerves, and produce a 
glow of good feeling, humour, and hilarity, which lasted til] 
the setting sun. 

21. The animal spirits were often cheered and enlivened 
by favourite airs from the well-appointed regimental bands. 
Wheeling aloft, with untiring wing, as if moving with, and 
watching over the armament, were several noble bald-eagles, 
whose eyries hung on the beetling crags, affording to the sol- 
diers a happy presage of victory. ‘The bagpipes of the High- 
landers would thrill every soul in the armada with the pibroch, 
or an expert bugleman electrify the multitude by causing the 
hills and the glens to echo with the stirring notes wound from 
his instrument. 

22. The effect of the varying and shifting movements of 
the barges among the islands, with their different streamers 
fluttering in the air, now shooting in this direction, and now 
running in that, was exceedingly fine, animating, and roman- 
tick. ‘Taking these movements in connexion with the nod- 
ding of plumes, the dazzling glitter of polished armour, and 
the flashing of the oars at every stroke as they rose from the 
sparkling waters, the whole prospect, seen at a coup d’eil, was 
of surpassing magnificence. 

23. Gayest among the gay on this occasion was our friend 
Captain Thorndyke, with his spirited company of rangers, 
destined to act on the right flank. Nor did the healthy buoy- 
ancy of spirits which prevailed during the voyage perceptibly 
diminish, until the laugh and the song, the light joke and the 
brisk repartee, had fairly expended themselves, and the giant 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 387 


shadows of the western mountains were thrown far across the 
lake, softening the intensity of light, and bringing with them 
that chastened pensiveness which loves to dwell in the shade. 

24. The landing of the expedition was effected in good or- 
der. But the particulars of the two days’ fighting that fol- 
lowed, the formidable obstacles which embarrassed their prog- 
ress, the unexpected odds they were doomed to encounter, 
the repeated and furious onsets, the prodigies of valour per- 
formed to no purpose, the defeat, the overthrow, and the route, 
are matters which we leave with the graver and statelier histo- 
rians, who chronicle dull facts to be used as webs in weaving 
the romance of history: 

25. Among the higher officers slain was the truly noble 
Lord Howe, the pride of the army, and a universal favourite, 
whose remains repose in our soil, and to whose memory a cen- 
otaph was erected in Westminster Abbey by American gener- 
osity. And many were the American mothers and daughters 
who were called to mourn the catastrophe of that day. 


LESSON CLXXXII. 


Dialogue between Charles H. and Wilkam Penn.—F RienpD 
oF Peace. 


It is said that, when William Penn was about to sail from England for 
Pennsylvania, he went to take leave of the king, and the following con- 
versation took place : 


Charles. Wet, friend William! I have sold you a noble 
province in North America; but still I suppose you have no 
thoughts of going thither yourself. 

Penn. Yes I have, I assure thee, friend Charles, and I am 
just come to bid thee farewell. 

Charles. What! venture yourself among the savages of 
North America! Why, man, what security have you that you 
will not be in their war-kettle in two hours after setting foot 
on their shores ? 

Penn. The best security in the world. 

R 2 


388 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Charles. I doubt that, friend William; I have no idea of 
any security against those cannibals, but in a regiment of 
good soldiers, with their muskets and bayonets. And mind, I 
tell you beforehand, that, with all my good-will for you and 
your family, to whom I am under obligations, I will not send a 
single soldier with you. 

Penn. I want none of thy soldie:s, Charles; I depend on 
something better than thy soldiers. 

Charles. Ah! and what may that be ? 

Penn. Why, I depend upon themselves ; on the workings 
of their own hearts; on their notions of justice ; on their 
moral sense. 

Charles. A fine thing, this same moral sense, no doubt ; 
but I fear you will not find much of it among the Indians of 
North America. 

Penn. And why not among them, as well as others ? 

Charles. Because, if they had possessed any, they would 
not have treated my subjects so barbarously as they have 
done. 

Penn. That is no proof to the contrary, friend Charles. 
Thy subjects were the aggressors. When thy subjects first 
went to North America, they found these poor people the 
fondest and kindest creatures in the world. Every day they 
would watch for them to come ashore, and hasten to meet 
them, and feast them on the best fish, and venison, and corn, 
which was all that they had. In return for this hospitality 
of the savages, as we call them, thy subjects, termed Chris- 
tians, seized on their country and rich hunting-grounds, for 
farms for themselves! Now is it to be wondered at, that 
these much-injured people should have been driven to des- 
peration by such injustice; and that, burning with revenge, 
they should have committed some excesses ? 

Charles. Well, then, I hope you will not complain when 
they come to treat you in the same manner. 

Penn. I am not afraid of it. 

Charles. Ay! How will you avoid it?’ You mean to get 
their hunting-grounds too, I suppose ? | 

Penn. Yes, but not by driving these poor people away from 
them. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 389 


Charles. No, indeed! How then will you get the lands? 

Penn. I mean to buy their lands of them. 

Charles. Buy their lands of them! Why, man, you have 
already bought them of me. 

Penn. Yes, I know I have, and at a dear rate too; but I 
did it only to get thy good will, not that I thought thou hadst 
any right to their lands. 

Charles. Zounds, man! no right to their lands! 

Penn. No, friend Charles, no right at all: what right hast 
thou to their lands ? 

Charles. Why, the right of discovery, to be sure ;_ the right 
which the pope and all Christian kings have agreed to give one 
another. 

Penn. The right of discovery! A kind of strange night, 
indeed! Nowsuppose, friend Charles, that some canoe-loads 
of these Indians, crossing the sea, and discovering thy island 
of Great Britain, were to claim it as their own, and set it up 
for sale over thy head, what wouldst thou think of it ? 

Charles. Why, why, why, I must confess, I should think it 
a piece of impudence in them. 

Penn. Well, then, how canst thou, a Christian, and a Chris- 
tian prince too, do that which thou so utterly condemnest in 
these people whom thou callest savages? Yes, friend Charles; 
and suppose again, that these Indians, on thy refusal to give 
up thy island of Great Britain, were to make war on thee, 
and, having weapons more destructive than thine, were to 
destroy many of thy subjects, and to drive the rest away, 
wouldst thou not think it horribly cruel ? 

Charles. I must say that I should, friend William: how can 
{ say otherwise ? 

Penn. Well, then, how can I, who call myself a Christian, 
do what I should abhor even in heathens? No, I will not do 
it. But I will buy the right of the proper owners, even of the 
Indians themselves. By doing this, I shall imitate God him- 
self; in his justice and mercy, and thereby ensure his bles- 
sing on my colony, if I should ever live to plant one in North 
America. 


\ 


390 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CLXXXIII. 
Of the Three Kingdoms of Nature.—Binetey. | 


1. Naturat objects have been in general arranged, for the 
purpose of classification, under the three grand divisions of 
MINERALS, VEGETABLES, and ANIMALS. 

2. Minerats are natural bodies destitute of organization 
and life; VEGETABLES Or PLANTs are natural bodies endowed 
with organization and life, but destitute of voluntary motion 
and sense ; and ANIMALS are natural bodies which possess or- 
ganization, life, sensation, and voluntary motion. 

3. First—or Minerats. If we penetrate beneath the sur- 
face of the earth, we discover there a remarkable arrangement. 
Instead of a generally uniform appearance, as we see on the sur- 
face, we pass through divers substances, as clay, gravel, sand, 
&c., deposited in beds or strata of various thickness, from a 
few inches to a great many feet. 

4. 'These lie, for the most part, nearly horizontal ; but in 
some instances, particularly in mountainous countries, they 
take different degrees of inclination; and in places where the 
country consists of gently-sloping hills and vales, the beds 
have a waving or bending form. 

5. These strata, as deep as the curiosity or the necessities 
of mankind have induced them to explore, satisfactorily de- 
monstrate the wisdom which has been displayed in the ar- 
rangement of materials requisite for the use of men and 
animals. 

6. The first layer is frequently a rich black mould, formed 
almost wholly of animal and vegetable remains ; this yields 
sustenance to the vegetable productions, and thereby becomes 
the actual, though not the immediate support of the whole 
animal creation. 

7. Beneath this is often found a thick bed of clay that fur- 
nishes to man a substance of which to make bricks, tiles, 
various kinds of pottery, and innumerable other articles for the 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 391 


comfort of social life. Next are deposited vast beds of gravel, 
that are of use in numerous points of view. 

8. Underneath this are the infinitely-varying strata of sand- 
stone, limestone, &c., which not only serve for the construc- 
tion of buildings, and for other important purposes, but also 
frequently surround mines, which contain the valuable metals. 

9. Beneath a slaty stratum are usually discovered those im- 
mense beds of coal so requisite for the comfort, and, in some 
situations, even for the existence of man. These strata, it is 
true, are not always found together, nor are they always dis- 
covered in the same order; but the statement will suffice to 
show the general nature of their arrangement. 

10. The most simple and natural division of minerals is 
into four classes; STONES, SALTS, COMBUSTIBLES, and METALS. 
Stones are subdivided into earthy and saline ; and metals into 
malleable and brittle. 

11. Second—or Vrcetasies. ‘The principal parts of 
plants are the Root; the HERB, TREE, or PLANT itself; and the 
fructification, or flower and fruit. The roots of plants and 
trees, having nothing pleasing to the eye, the Creator has, for 
the most part, hidden from the view; they are nevertheless of 
great importance in the vegetable economy ; they are furnished 
with a set of vessels by means of which they draw moisture 
from the earth ; and they fix the plant in the spot it is designed 
to occupy. 

12. They are of various kinds, and have different periods 
of duration ; and they are frequently observed to compensate, 
in an extraordinary manner, for local inconveniences, changing 
their direction, for instance, when they meet with a stone ; 
turning aside from barren into fertile ground ; and, when sta- 
tioned on the rocky edge of a deep ditch, creeping down one 
side and ascending the other, so as to place themselves in 
ticher soil. - 

13. The plant itself consists of a variety of layers and 
vessels curiously arranged, and adapted for performing all the 
functions of vegetable life. First of all is the cuticle, or 
bark, investing every part of a living plant, and varying in 
texture from the delicate covering of a flower to the rough 
coating of a pearly aloe. It is furnished in many parts with 


892 NORTH AMERICAN REAVER. 


pores, through which air and light are admitted ; and it is not 
only essential to plants in general, but also produces an elegant 
effect. 

14. To the cuticle succeeds a green substance, called the 
cellular integument ; then comes the bark, the innermost layer 
of which is called the liber; and, lastly, the wood, which 
sometimes contains within it the pith, suppheee to be a reser- 
voir of moisture or vital energy. 

15. A variety of concentrick circles beautifully diversify 
the surface of the wood, each of them showing the growth of a 
year. The wood itself consists of two parts, the internal-or 
true wood, which is hard and darkly-coloured ; and the outer, 
or alburnum, which is different in appearance, and not yet com- 
pletely hardened. 

16. The sap-vessels ascend from the points of the roots, 
through the superficial alburnum, become spiral and coated a 
little below the leaves, and enter them in a central arrange- 
iment round the pith. The fluid destined to nourish a plant, 
being absorbed in the root, becomes sap, and is carried up by 
these vessels into the leaves, where it undergoes.a wonderful 
chymical change, and is brought back, through another set of 
vessels, down the leaf-stalks into the liber, where it is supposed 
to deposite the principal secretions of the tree. 

17, Thus, to the bark of the oak, a tanning principle is 
communicated; to the Peruvian bark, what has been found 
so beneficial in fevers ; to the cinnamon, its grateful aromatick 
taste ; to the sandal-wood, its never-dying fragrance, so beau- 
tifully noticed in an Aga couplet, which pronounces the duty 
of a good man to consist, not only in pardoning, but also in 
benefiting his enemies, as the sandal-tree, at the moment of 
its overthrow, sheds the sweetest perfume on the axe that 
fells it. 

18. The parts of fructification are, the calyx, coroila, sta- 
mens, pistils, seed-vessel, seeds, and receptacle. The calyx, 
or flower-cup, is the green part which is situated immediately 
beneath the blossom; the corolla, or blossom, is that coloured 
part of every flower, on which its beauty principally depends, 
and the leaves that compose it are denominated petals. 

19. The stamens and pistils are in the centre of the flower, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 393 


and are the organs on which the fructification and reproduction 
of the plant more particularly depend. ‘Lhe former surreund 
the latter, and consist each of a filament or thread, and an 
anther or summit ; which last, when ripe, contaius a fine pow- 
der called pollen. 

20. At the foot of the pistil is situated the germe; this, 
when grown to maturity, has the name of pericarp, or seed- 
vesse,, and is that part of the fructification which contains the 
seeds ; whether it be a capsule as in the poppy, a nut as in the 
filbert, a berry as in the gooseberry, a pod as in the pea, or a 
cone as in the fir-tree. 

21. The seed is so well known as to require no casei 
tion; and the receptacle is the base which connects all the 
parts of fructification together, and on which they are seated ; 
as, for example, the eatable part of the artichoke. 

22. Third—or Animats. ‘The objects comprehended 
within the animal kingdom, are divided into six classes: MAM- 
MALIA, Or mammiferous animals; BIRDS; AMPHIBIA, Or am- 
phibious animals ; yIsHES: INSECTS; and WORMS. 

23. The class: mammuasa consists of such animals as pro- 
duce living offspring, and nourish their young ones with milk 
supplied from their bodies; and it comprises quadrupeds, bats, 
seals, and whales. The class birds comprises all such ani- 
mals as have their bodies clad with feathers. 

24. Under the third class, or amphibia, are arranged such 
animals as have a cold, and generally naked body, a lurid col- 
our, and nauseous smell. They respire chiefly by lungs, but 
they have the power of suspending respiration for a long time ; 
they are extremely tenacious of life, and can repair certain 
parts of their bodies which have been lost; they are also 
able to endure hunger, sometimes even for months, without 
injury. 

25. Fishes constitute the fourth class of animals; they are 
all inhabitants of the water, in which they move by certain or- 
gans called fins; they breathe by gills. Insects are so de- 
nominated, from the greater number of them having a separa- 
tion in the middle of their bodies, by which they are, as it 
were, cut into two parts. They have in general six or more 
legs, besides wings, and antenne, or instruments of touch; 


394 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


and they nearly all go through certain great changes at differ- 
ent periods of their existence. 

26. The sixth and last class of animals consists of Worms, 
or Vermes, which are slow of motion, and have soft and fleshy 
bodies. ‘These animals are principally distinguished from 
those of the other classes, by having tentacula or feelers. 

2'7. Such are the three kingdoms of nature, and their prin- 
cipal divisions, according to the system of Linnzus, a distin- 
guished naturalist of Sweden, who flourished about the middle 
of the eighteenth century. These kingdoms, though distinct, 
are mutually connected ; and it is not always easy to say of 
a natural object to which of them it belongs. 

28. The mineral kingdom indeed can never be confounded 
with the other two; for fossils are masses of mere dead un- 
organized matter, growing indeed by the addition of extrane- 
ous substances, but not fed by nourishment taken into an or- 
ganized and living structure. 

29. Vegetables and animals, on the contrary, aa resem- 
ble each other so closely as to render them scarcely distin- 
guishable. If it be asked, what is the vital principle which 
belongs to the last two classes, and distinguishes them from 
the first, we must own our complete ignorance. We knowit, 
as we know its omnipotent Author, by its effects. 


LESSON CLXXXIV. 


Poetry and Musick.—James W. Simmons.—Southern 
Review. 


1. WE have no objection to admit that the momentary im- 
pression created by a beautiful air without words, is, perhaps, 
more powerful than that produced by the finest poetry ; but it 
is only a momentary impression, which ceases to act upon the 
mind when the sound that created it has passed away. But 
the power of fine poetry is not, like that of musick, limited to 
the moment; the mind retains, and delights to retain, the elo- 
quent and glowing language, the “ winged words” in which it 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 395 


- imbodies, as it were, its divine inspiration, and is thus furnished 
with a perpetual source of enjoyment. 

2. Musick is, undoubtedly, possessed of a peculiar magick 
of its own; an overpowering charm that seems to fascinate 
all living nature, by an inexplicable adaptation of the soul for 
receiving pleasure from a “concord of sweet sounds.” Un- 
like poetry, musick ceases to exercise this power over the feel- 
ings, the moment that it becomes laboured, or departs from 
that simplicity which originally belonged to it; and which must 
have characterized its earliest efforts as a gift, and not a 
science. 

3. In the theory of musick, as well as m fact, harmony is 
destructive of melody. Harmony requires a cultivated ear ; 
melody a strong susceptibility of feeling ; and it is for this 
reason that the musick which charms us most, is always that 
which is the most simple. Poetry is necessarily more fixed 
and limited than musick, from the circumstance of its being 
obliged to imbody itself in words, a species of sensible char- 
acters, however, which, like those of visible beauty, are pos- 
sessed of their own peculiar and powerful associations, 

4. These associations, from their immediate and almost 
palpable connexion with human feeling, exercise a degree of 
influence over us superiour, or, at least, quite equal, to that 
produced by musick. We speak, of course, of the higher 
order of poetry; and this at once pays a compliment to mu- 
sick, which neither of its sister arts can claim, that its simplest 
efforts are equal, as to the effect produced, to the loftiest 
achievements of the pen or pencil. 

5. But poetry, it has been asserted, is, after all, indebted to 
musick for one of its chief charms, versification, which seems 
to be regarded as a species of vocal musick. Pretenders in 
verse, influenced by this opinion, have deluged the world with 
the outpourings of a fancy that seems to have been capable 
of nothing beyond an exact measurement of feet, and a me- 
chanical modulation of cadences. 

6. The failure of these musical efforts of producing any 
strong or lasting impressions, only affords a proof that a strict 
observance of the rules of the poetical grammar is not suffi- 
cient to constitute poetry, that is, its soul; its form is very 


396 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


easily fashioned, as we know to our cost. This form has been 
assigned to poetry, and must always belong to it; the errour 
of the writers we speak of, consists in their supposing the 
merit of all poetry, or perhaps we might with truth say, all the 
merit of poetry, to lie in the absolute perfection of this arbi- 
trary and artificial form, in which its loftier conceptions are 
bodied forth. 

7. The Wiad was written long before the “ Poeticks” of 
Aristotle ; and there is, certainly, very little reverence shown 
for the learned injunctions of the grammarian throughout the 
‘‘ Paradise Lost.” It is unquestionable that had that wonder- 
ful and divine work been written with the same attention to 
what are called the “ graces of style,” which may be detected 
in every page, nay, every line of the “ Pleasures of Memory” 
and the “Art of Preserving Health,” it had lost one half the 
power it now exercises over the mind. 

8. This may appear like insinuating a charge against Milton 
which he does not deserve. His style is correct without being 
polished; it has a degree of ruggedness, or, rather, of au- 
sterity, which, while it belonged to the very nature of his sub- 
ject, was inseparable, at the same time, from the force and 
grandeur of the poet’s conceptions. The language is suited 
to the thoughts, which disdained the smooth and polished dic- 
tion of fancy that with a ‘ middle flight soars” never ‘ above 
the Aonian mount.” ‘The ensuing nine lines, which can never 
be read or quoted too often, are, in our opinion, worth all the 
elegant effusions of Pope, Akenside, and Armstrong, taken 
collectively : 


9. ‘** But see, the angry victor hath recalied 
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit 
Back to the gates of heaven; the sulphurous hail 
Shot after us in storm, o’erblown hath laid 
The fiery surge that from the precipice 
Of heaven received us falling ; and the thunder, 
Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, 
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now 
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.” 


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NORTH AMERICAN READER. 397 


LESSON CLXXXV. 
Autumn.—Mrs. S1iGouRNEY. 


Tree! why hast thou doffed thy mantle of green 
For the gorgeous garb of an Indian queen ? 
With the umbered brown, and the crimson stain, 
And the yellow fringe on its broidered train? 

And the autumn gale through its branches sighed 
Of a long arrear, for the transient pride. 


. Stream! why is thy rushing step delayed ? 


Thy tuneful talk to the pebbles staid? 

Hath the Spoiler found thee who wrecks the plains ? 
Didst thou trifle with him till he chilled thy veins ? 
But it murmured on with a mournful tone, 

Till fetters of ice were around it thrown. 


- Rose! why art thou drooping thy beautiful head ? 


Hast thou bowed to the frost-king’s kiss of dread? 
When thou sawest his deeds in the withering vale, 
Didst thou, lingering, list to his varnished tale 2 
And she answered not, but strove to fold 

In her bosom the blight of his dalliance bold. 


. Yet ye still have a voice to the musing heart, 


Tree, Stream, and Rose, as ye sadly part, 

*‘ We are symbols, ye say, of the hasting doom 
Of youth, and of health, and of beauty’s bloom, 
When Disease, with a hectick flush doth glow, 
And Time steal on with his tress of snow.” 


. Is this all? is your painful lesson done? 


And they spoke in their bitterness, every one, 
«The soul that admits in an evil hour, 

The breath of vice to its sacred bower, 

Will find its peace with its glory die, 

Like the fading hues of an autumn sky.” 

3 


398 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


~ 


LESSON CLXXXVI. 
The American Bible Society—Dr. E. D. Grirrin. 


1. Iam persuaded that there is no person present, who does 
not feel the inspiration of :this occasion. For myself, I con- 
gratulate my country, that we now find on her annals the name 
of the American Bible Society. 

2. This is an occasion to awaken the best feelings of the 
heart. We are assembled, not to rouse the rancour of po- 
litical zeal ; not to arrange plans of foreign contest; not to 
shout the triumphs of victory; we have a nobler object; to 
aid the march of the everlasting gospel through the world, to 
spread abroad a fountain, whose waters are intended for the 
healing of the nations, 

3. The design of this august institution is not merely to re- 
lieve the wants of our own country, but to extend the hand of 
charity to the most distant lands; to break asunder the fetters 
of Mahometan imposture ;_ to purify the abominations of Jug- 
gernaut; to snatch the Hindoo widow from the funeral pile ; 
to raise the degraded African to the sublime contemplation of 
God and immortality; to tame and baptize in the waters of 
life the American savage; to pour the light of heaven upon 
the darkness of the Andes; and to call back the nations from 
the altars of Satan to the temple of the living God. 

4. These high objects are to be accomplished by the uni- 
versal promulgation of the Bible ; the Bible, that volume, con- 
ceived in the councils of eternal mercy, containing the won- 
drous story of redeeming love, blazing with the lustre of 
Jehovah’s glory; that volume, pre-eminently calculated to 
soften the heart, sanctify the affections, and elevate the soul 
of man; to enkindle the poet’s fire, and teach the philosopher 
wisdom ; to consecrate the domestick relations; to pour the 
balm of heaven into the wounded heart; to cheer the dying 
hour, and shed the light of immortality upon the darkness of 
the tomb. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 399 


5, I reiterate the mighty term, the Bible; that richest of 
man’s treasure, that best of heaven’s gifts. Amazing volume! 
in every one of thy pages, I see the impress of the Godhead. 
How divine are thy doctrines, how pure thy precepts, how 
sublime thy language! How unaffecting is the tenderness of 
an Otway, or a Euripides, when compared with the heait- 
touching pathos of thy David or Jeremiah! How do the loft- 
iest effusions of a Milton or a Homer sink, when contrasted 
with the sublimer strains of thine Isaiah or Habakkuk ! 

6. And how do the pure and soul-elevating doctrines of thy 
Moses or thy Paul look down, as from the height of heaven, 
upon the grovelling systems of a Mahomet or a Confucius! 
Give this Bible an empire in every heart, and the prevalence of 
crime and misery would yield to the universal diffusion of mil- 
lennial glory. 

7. Destroy this Bible, let the ruthless arm of infidelity tear 
this sun from the moral heavens, and all would be darkness, 
and guilt, and wretchedness ; again would 


‘‘ Earth feel the wound, and nature from her seat, 
Sighing through all her works, give signs of wo, 
That all was lost.” 


LESSON CLXXXVII. 
History of Nature—Sternen Extiott.—Southern Review. 


1. Wuat is there that will not be included in the History 
of Nature? The earth on which we tread, the air we breathe, 
the waters around the earth, the material forms that inhabit its 
surface, the mind of man, with all its magical illusions and all 
its inherent energy, the planets that move around our system, 
the firmament of Heaven, the smallest of the invisible atoms 
which float around our globe, and the most majestick of the. 
orbs that roll through the immeasurable fields of space; all 
are parts of one system, productions of one power, creations 
of one intellect, the offspring of Him, by whom all that is inert 


400 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


and inorganick in creation was formed, and from whom all 
that have life derive their being. 

2. Of this immense system, all that we can examine, this 
little globe that we inherit is full of animation and crowded 
with forms organized, glowing with life, and generally sentient. 
No space is unoccupied ; the exposed surface of the rock is 
incrusted with living substances ; plants occupy the bark and 
decaying limbs of other plants; animals live on the surface 
and in the bodies of other animals; inhabitants are fashioned 
and adapted to equatorial heats and polar ice; air, earth, and 
ocean teem with life; and if to other worlds the same propor- 
tion of life and of enjoyment has been distributed which has 
been allotted to ours ; 

3. If creative benevolence has equally filled every other 
planet of every other system, nay, even the suns themselves, 
with beings organized, animated, and intelligent, how count- 
less must be the generations of the living! what voices which 
we cannot hear, what languages that we cannot understand, 
what multitudes that we cannot see, may, as they roll along 
the stream of time, be employed hourly, daily, and for ever, in 
choral songs of praise, hymning their great Creator. 

4, And when in this almost prodigal waste of life we per- 
‘ceive that every being, from the puny insect which flutters in 
the evening ray, from the lichen which the eye can scarcely 
distinguish on the mouldering rock; from the fungus that 
springs up and reanimates the mass of dead and decomposing 
substances, that every living form possesses a structure as per- 
fect in its sphere, an organization sometimes as complex, 
always as truly and completely adapted to its purposes and 
modes of existence, as that of the most perfect animal; when 
we discover them all to be governed by laws as definite, as 
immutable, as those which regulate the planetary movements, 
great must be our admiration of the wisdom which has ar- 
ranged, and the power which has perfected this stupendous 
fabrick. | 

5. Nor does creation here cease. There are beyond the 
limits of our system, beyond the visible forms of matter, other 
principles, other powers, higher orders of beings, an immate- 
rial world which we cannot yet know; other modes of exist- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 401 


ence which we cannot comprehend; yet, however inscrutable 
to us, this spiritual world must be guided by its own unerring 
laws, and the harmonious order which reigns in all that we can 
see and understand, ascending through the series of immortal 
and invisible existence, must govern even the powers and do- 
minions, the seraphim and cherubim that surround the throne 
of God himself. 


LESSON CLXXXVIII. 


The Effects of a Dissolution of the Federal Union.— 
HAMILTON. 


1. Assumine it, therefore, as an established truth, that, in 
case of disunion, the several states, or such combinations of 
them as might happen to be formed out of the wreck of the 
general confederacy, would be subject to those vicissi- 
tudes of peace and war, of friendship and enmity with each 
other, which have fallen to the lot of all other nations not 
united under one government, let us enter into a concise de- 
tail of some of the consequences that would attend sucha 
situation. 

2. War between the states, in the first periods of their 
separate existence, would be accompanied with much greater 
distresses than it commonly is in those countries where regular 
military establishments have long obtained. ‘The disciplined 
armies always kept on foot on the continent of Europe, though 
they bear a malignant aspect to liberty and economy, have, 
notwithstanding, /been productive of the singular advantage 
of rendering sudden conquests impracticable, and of prevent- 
ing that rapid desolation which used to mark the progress of 
war prior to their introduction. 

, 3. The art of fortification has contributed to the same ends. 
The nations of Europe are encircled with chains of fortified 
places, which mutually vbstruct invasion. Campaigns are 
wasted in reducing two or three fortified garrisons, to gain ad- 
mittance’into an enemy’s country. Similar impediments occur 


402 NORTH AMERICAN RFADER. 


at every step, to exhaust the strength and delay the. progress 
ot an invader, 

4. Formerly, an invading army would penetrate into the 
heart of a neighbouring country almost as soonas intelligence 
of its approach could be received ; but now, a comparatively 
small force of disciplined troops, acting on the defensive, with 
the aid of posts, is able to impede, and finally to frustrate, the 
purposes of one much more considerable. The history of 
war in that quarter of the globe is no longer a history of na- 
tions subdued and empires overturned; but of towns taken 
and retaken, of battles that decide nothing, of retreats more 
beneficial than victories, of much effort and little acquisition. 

5. In this country the scene would be altogether reversed. 
The jealousy of military establishments would postpone them 
as long as possible. The want of fortifications, leaving the 
frontier of one state open to another, would facilitate inroads. 
The populous states would with little difficulty overrun their 
less populous neighbours. Conquests would be as easy 
to be made as difficult to be retained. War, therefore, would 
be desultory and predatory. Plunder and devastation ever 
march in the train of regulars. ‘The calamities of indi- 
viduals would ever make the principal figure in events, and 
would characterize our exploits. 

6. This picture is not too highly wrought; though, I con- 
fess, it would not long remain a just one. Safety from ex- 
ternal danger is the most powerful director of national con- 
duct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give 
way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and prop- 
erty incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant 
on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most 
attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institu- 
tions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political 
rights. To be more safe,they at length become willing to 
run the risk of being less free. 

7. The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING 
ARMIES, and the corresponding appendages of military 
establishments. Standing armies, it is said, are not provided 
against in the new constitution ; and it is thence inferred that 
they would exist under it. This inference, from the very form 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 403 


of the proposition, is at best problematical and uncertain. 
But standing armies, it may be replied, must inevitably result 
from a dissolution of the confederacy. Frequent war and 
constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant 
preparation, will infallibly produce them. 

8. The weaker states or confederacies would first have re- 
course to them, to put themselves on an equality with their 
more potent neighbours. .'They would endeavour to supply 
the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular 
and effective system of defence, by disciplined troops, and by 
fortifications. They would at the same time, be obliged to 
strengthen the executive arm of government; in doing which 
their constitutions would require a progressive direction tow- 
ards monarchy. It is the nature of war to increase the exec- 
utive, at the expense of the legislative authority. 

9. The expedients which have been mentioned would soon 
give the states or confederacies that made use of them, a 
superiority over their neighbours. Small states, or states of 
less natural strength, under vigorous governments, and with 
the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over 
large states, or states of greater natural strength, which have 
been destitute of these advantages. 

10. Neither the pride nor the safety of the important states 
or confederacies, would permit them long to submit to this 
mortifying and adventitious superiority. ‘They would quickly 
resort to means similar to those by which it had been effected, 
to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus we 
should, in a little time, see established in every part of this 
country the same engines of despotism which have been the 
scourge of the old world. 

11. This, at least, would be the natural course of things ; 
and our reasonings will be likely to be just, in proportion as 
they are accommodated to this standard. These are not 
vague inferences, deduced from speculative defects in a con- 
stitution, the whole power of which is lodged in the hands of 
the people, or their representatives and delegates; they are 
solid conclusions, drawn from the natural and necessary prog- 
ress of human affairs. 


404 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CLXXXIX. 
Vanity.x—Rosert Hatt. 


1. THERE is, it will be confessed, a delicate sensibility to 
character, a sober desire of reputation, a wish to possess the 
esteem of the wise and good, felt by the purest minds, which 
is at the farthest remove from arrogance or vanity. The hu- 
mility of a noble mind scarcely dares approve of itself, until 
it has secured the approbation of others. Very different is 
that restless desire of distinction, that passion for theatrical 
display, which inflames the heart and occupies the whole atten- 
tion of vain men. 

2. This, of all the passions, is the most unsocial, avarice 
itself not excepted. The reason is plain. Property isa kind 
of good which may be more easily attained, and is capable of 
more minute subdivisions, than fame. In the pursuit of wealth, 
men are led by an attention to their own interest to promote 
the welfare of each other; their advantages are reciprocal ; 
the benefits which each is anxious to acquire for himself he 
reaps in the greatest abundance from the union and conjunc- 
tion of society. The pursuits of vanity are quite contrary. 

3. The portion of time and attention mankind are willing 
to spare from their avocations and pleasures to devote to the 
admiration of each other is so small,'that every successful 
adventurer is felt to have impaired the common stock. The 
success of one is the disappointment of multitudes. For 
though there be many rich, many virtuous, many wise men, 
fame must necessarily be the portion of but few. Hence 
every vain man, every man in whom vanity is the ruling pas- 
sion, regarding his rival as his enemy, is strongly tempted to 
rejoice in his miscarriage, and repine at his success. 

4. Besides, as the passions are seldom seen in a simple, 
unmixed state, so vanity, when it succeeds, degenerates into 
arrogance; when it is disappointed (and it is often disap- 
pointed), it is exasperated into malignity, and corrupted into 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 405 


envy. In this stage the vain man commences a determined 
misanthropist. He detests that excellence which he cannot 
reach. He detests his species, and longs to be revenged for 
the unpardonable injustice he has sustained in their insensi- 
bility to his merits. He lives upon the calamities of the world ; 
the vices and miseries of men are his element and his food. 

5. Virtues, talents, and genius are his natural enemies, 
which he persecutes with instinctive eagerness and unrelenting 
hostility. There are who doubt the existence of such a dis- 
position ; but it certainly issues out of the dregs of disap- 
pointed vanity: a disease which taints and vitiates the whole 
character wherever it prevails. It forms the heart to such a 
profound indifference to the welfare of others, that, whatever 
appearances he may assume, or however wide the circle of his 
seeming virtues may extend, you will infallibly find the vain 
man is his own centre. 

6. Attentive only to himself, absorbed in the contemplation 
of his own perfections, instead of feeling tenderness for his 
fellow-creatures as members of the same family, as beings with 
whom he is appointed to act, to suffer, and to sympathize, he 
considers life as a stage on which he is performing a part, and 
mankind in no other light than spectators. Whether he smile 
or frown, whether his path be adorned with the rays of benefi- 
cence, or his steps be died in blood, an attention to self is the 
spring of every movement, and the motive to which every ac- 
tion is referred. 

7. His apparent good qualities lose all their worth, by losing 
all that is simple, genuine, and natural: they are even pressed 
into the service of vanity, and become the means of enlarging 
its power. The truly good man is jealous over himself lest 
the notoriety of his best actions, by blending itself with their 
motive, should diminish their value; the vain man performs 
the same actions for the sake of that notoriety. The good 
man quietly discharges his duty, and shuns ostentation; the 
vain man considers every good deed lost that is not publickly 
displayed. The one is intent upon realities, the other upon 
semblances : the one aims to be virtuous, the other to appear so, 


406 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CXC. 
Pride of Profession.—Tueropore S. Fay. 


1. WE are very apt to be fond of that which we excel in 
ourselves, and to underrate the acquirements and powers of 
others In a different sphere, without reflecting that the field of 
human thought and occupation is broad, and that a man may 
carefully cultivate one part without being in the least ac- 
quainted with the products of another. With what contempt 
a skilful musician sometimes regards one who cannot tum 
a tune, but who, perhaps, is an excellent book-keeper, or an 
adroit ship-builder. 

2. What a conscious pride and pomp of erudition a pro- 
found linguist betrays while quoting familiarly from Homer 
and Horace, Dante, or Lopez de Vega, before a simple stu- 
dent, only master of his mether tongue, and who in turn sneers 
at the mistakes made by others in speaking of natural philos- 
ophy and astronomy. I never suffer myself to be led away 
thus by a man’s accidental accomplishments or attainments. 

3. If I find a sensible good-hearted fellow (as I frequently 
de), who has never even read Milton and Shakspeare, I respect 
him notwithstanding ; for I say to myself, it is probable he is 
an adept at something besides literature, where perhaps I 
should require a similar indulgence from him, 


LESSON CXCI. 
Phenomenon of the Falling Stavs.—W. Gitmore Sts. 


1. Tue idol of old worship had but one, 
And a dull feature! Different far, the God 
Of the enlightened ages; who, still new, - 
In every varying season, thsough all hours, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 407 


Puts on fresh garbs and guises: looking forth, 
Sometimes in storm and thunder, in the cloud 
That ruffles the blue beauties of the sky, 
In all the charm and change of field and flower, 
Wild ocean, and still river; nor is seen, 
In any change unmarked, glorious in all ! 
Thus wondrously arrayed,in ancient time, 
As now, in the accumulated change 
Of glory upon glory, how the seers 
Of the barbarian ages had been dumb! 
3. How had the Chaldean shepherd, in affright, 
Awe-struck, been bowed before his idol-stone : 
Or, with a nameless terrour, gathering up 
His household goods and gods, with hasty stride, 
His wife, cold, clinging wildly to his arm, 
And his young children round him, stood prepared 
Upon his cottage threshold, dumb with fear, 
Ready for flight. 


2 


e 


LESSON CXCII. 
Commendation Serviceable.—A. B. JoHnson. 


1. ProFiciency resides on the summit of a hill. The 
path to her is uneven, the footing insecure. Hope assists ad- 
venturers in their first progression, but he is easily alarmed by 
weariness, or conquered by disgust. To defend us against 
these, nothing is more serviceable than commendation. 

2. A crust may expand our body, and the hemlock un- 
noted may rear its branches from the earth; but, without 
praise, the mind will never attain its stature, nor will genius 
unregarded, bear its foliage to the skies. These truths are 
too obvious to be new, hence a judicious instructer will not 
only mete encomiums to every exertion, but he will award 
them in advance as a stimulant. 

3. But different is the discipline of this great school the 
world. Applauses are given here to perseverance, and to at- 


408 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


tainments that can no longer be resisted; a perseverance 
which every previous defeat renders more irksome; and at- 
tainments that accumulated disappomtment makes more dif- 
ficult. 

4, Can any good come out of Nazareth, is an aspiration, 
which every new candidate for fame will excite. ‘The re- 
viewers see him, and pass by on the other side; the daily 
journals may look at him, but they too will quickly pass ; 
nor among all who preside in the temples of learning, nor 
among the powerful, the renowned, and the rich, will there, 
perhaps, be one Samaritan to mollify his wounds. What then 
shall he do? He must convert difficulties into incentives, 
like a soldier in the deadly breach, who knows that every 
blade which is levelled at his breast, will be changed by victory 
into a ray of glory. 

5. Sensitiveness to the approbation of mankind, and espe- 
cially to the approbation of distinguished men, is not mean- 
ness, but a principle of our nature that was felt by Diogenes 
when he most denied it, and that is co-extensive with society. 
When an attendant of Napoleon was so exhausted, that nature 
iitermitted the performance of her vital functions (a moment 
when vanity exerts its feeblest grasp), the emperour proposed 
to enter the sick man’s roem, as a means of exciting the 
Jatent energies of life. The proposal was abandoned, not 
because the excitement was impracticable, but because it 
would exceed what extreme debility could support. 

6. Another impediment to excellence is versatility. The 
present opinion is always deemed wiser than its predecessors. 
It annuls their decrees, breaks their prohibitions, despises their 
precautions, and will have none of their reproofs. These 
consequences are irremediable, and all the palliative which 
we can apply, is to reflect, that the abrogated opinions were 
as boastful of infallibility as the present; that they were as 
much flattered by hope, and as much irritated by opposition. 

7. Possibly, then, we are still in errour. One sentiment 
alone seems immutable, that if we change our course when- 
ever difficulties oppress, or defeats alarm us, we must change 
incessantly: we can in this way run, but we shall never 
ascend; we may be active, but we shall never advance. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 409 


8. The last difficulty to which I shall advert, is the most 
formidable. It is the love we bear to an enchantress of ex- 
_ quisite beauty. A fascinating smile plays upon her counte- 
nance, and as she reclines within an arbour of roses, she calls 
incessantly for all to approach, and enjoy her society. To 
her, many a soldier, on the point of accomplishing his ambi- 
tion, sacrifices the opportunity. For her, students forsake 
their books, lovers their mistresses, and even parents their 
children. 

9. Unnumbered manuscripts, which were commenced to 
transmit triumphantly some ‘name to posterity, lie scattered 
around her unfinished and deserted. Merchants neglect their 
business through her fascination, and become bankrupt. 
Physicians linger in her precincts, till their patients are incura- 
ble ; lawyers, till their clients lose the fruits of a successful 
litigation ; and divines, till the unreproved sinner exhausts the 
period of his probation. 

10. Thou potent being ! around whom men seem to fall in 
neglect of honour, duty, and ambition, deign to inform me 
who thou art; and why, with a paralyzing influence, thou 
thwartest the designs of youth, and holdest even the scanty 
moments of age in procrastination and indecision ? 

11. “Stranger,” replies the captivating sorceress, ‘my 
name is Ease. I am the ultimate earthly reward, which 
every man expects for the toils that tear his frame, and the 
cares that agitate his mind. ‘But why this toil and care in 
you? Even now partake the joys which I dispense!” She 
beckoned authoritatively, and yielding to the command, I sunk 
down, and left even the present discourse “ unfinished and 
scarce half made up.” 


LESSON CXCIII. ; 
Necessity of Edueation.—JupcE Coorrr.—Southern 
Revie. 


1. So well are we persuaded of the benefit the publick 
would derive from a good system of national education, that 


410 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


we are as anxious as these reformers can be, that the poorest 
person in the country should be taught reading, writing, arith- 
metick in all its rules and branches, mensuration, the elements 
of algebra and geography. If the parents, from misfortune 
and accident involving no crime, are unable to pay for such an 
education, let the publick maintain such children as paupers 
till twelve or fourteen years of age, and then bind them out 
to some industrious calling. 

2. But where this is not the case with the parent, he should 
be compelled inexorably to pay his fair proportion toward the 
expense attending this first of duties. Beyond the branches 
now indicated, education is a luxury, not a necessary of life. 
You might as well say that a child has a natural right to plum- 
pudding and custard after dinner, as to Greek, Latin, the ori- 
ental languages, and the higher calculus. 

3. We would even go so far as to provide teachers and 
apparatus at the publick expense for every branch of knowl- 
edge without exception, but the publick expense should be de- 
frayed from the produce of impartial taxation. To such na- 
tional schools, every person might send his children to be 
taught whatever branches of knowledge the parent thought 
‘necessary to the future destination of the child. 


LESSON CXCIV., 
Extract from Mr. Mc Duffie’s Speech on Corruption. 


1. Sir, we are apt to treat the idea of our own corrupti- 
bility as utterly visionary, and to ask, witha grave affectation 
of dignity, What! do you think a member of congress can 
be corrupted? Sir, I speak what I have long and deliberately 
considered, when I say, that since man was created, there never 
has been a political body on the face of the earth, that would 
not be corrupted under the same circumstances. 

2. Corruption steals upon us in a thousand insidious forms, 
when we are least aware of its approaches. Of all the forms 
in which it can present itself, the bribery of office is the most 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 41] 


dangerous, because it assumes the guise of patriotism to ac- 
complish-its fatal sorcery. We are often asked, Where is the 
evidence of corruption? Have you seen it? 

3. Sir, do you expect to see it? You might as well expect 
to see the imbodied forms of pestilence and famine stalking 
before you, as to see the latent operations of this insidious 
power. We may walk amidst it and breathe its contagion, 
without being conscious of its presence. All experience 
teaches us the irresistible power of temptation, when vice 
assumes the form of virtue. 

4. The great enemy of mankind could not have consum- 
mated his infernal scheme for the seduction of our first parents, 
but for the disguise in which he presented himself. Had he 
appeared as the devil, in his proper form; had the spear of 
Ithuriel disclosed the naked deformity of the fiend of hell, the 
inhabitants of Paradise would have shrunk with horrour from 
his presence. 

5. But he came as the insinuating serpent, and presented a 
beautiful apple, the most delicious fruit in all the garden. He 
told his glowing story to the unsuspecting victim of his guile. 
“Tt can be no crime to taste of this delightful fruit. It will 
disclose to you the knowledge of good and evil. It will raise 
you to an equality with the angels.” 

6. Such, sir, was the process; and in this simple but im- 
pressive narrative, we have the most beautiful and philosophi- 
cal illustration of the frailty of man, and the power of tempta- 
tion, that could possibly be exhibited. - Mr. Chairman, I have 
been forcibly struck with the similarity between our present 
situation and that of Eve, after it was announced that Satan 
was on the borders of Paradise. 

7. We, too, have been warned that the enemy is on our bor- 
ders. But God forbid that the similitude should be carried 
any farther. Eve, conscious of her innocence, sought tempt- 
ation and defied it. The catastrophe is too fatally known to 
us all. She went, “with the blessings of Heaven on her 
head, and its purity in her heart,” guarded by the ministry of 
angels; she returned, covered with shame, under the heavy 
denuntiation of Heaven’s everlasting curse. 

8. Sir, it is innocence that temptation conquers. If our 

$2 


412° NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


first parent, pure as she came from the hand of God, was 
overcome by the seductive power, let us not imitate her fatal 
rashness, seeking temptation, when it is in our power to avoid 
it. Let us not vainly confide in our own infallibility. We 
are liable to be corrupted. To an ambitious man, an honour- 
able office will appear as beautiful and fascinating as the apple 
of Paradise. 

9. I admit, sir, that ambition is a passion, at once the most 
powerful and the most useful. Without it, human affairs would 
become a mere stagnant pool. By means of his patronage, 
the president addresses himself in the most irresistible man- 
ner, to this, the noblest and strongest of our passions. 

10. All that the imagination can desire, honour, power, 
wealth, ease, are held out as the temptation. Man was not 
made to resist such temptations. It is impossible to conceive, 
Satan himself could not devise a system which would more 
infallibly introduce corruption and death into our political Eden. 
Sir, the angels fell from Heaven with less temptation. 


LESSON CXCYV. 


Eulogy on Chancellor Livingston and Robert Fulion.— 
De Witt CuinTon. 


1. We have thus seen Mr. Livingston converting the les- 
sons of his experience and observation into sources of prac- 
tical and general utility. He was not one of those remote 
suns, whose light and heat have not yet reached our planetary 
system. His object, his ambition, his study, was to do the 
“ greatest good to the greatest number. 

2. There is no doubt but that he felt the extent of his own 
powers, and the plenitude of his own resources ; but he bore 
his faculties meekly about him, never offending the pride or 
the delicacy of his associates by arrogance or by intrusion, 
by neglect or by slight, by acting the oracle or dictator. 

3. He was an eminent arbiter elegantiarum, or judge of 
propriety ; his conversation was unpremeditated ; it abounded 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 413 


with brilliant wit, with apposite illustrations, and with various 
and extended knowledge, always as gentle as “zephyrs blowing 
below the violet,” and always exhibiting the overflowings of a 
fertile mind. His great qualities were attended with a due 
sense of his own imperfections, and of his limited powers. 

4. He did not see in himself the tortoise of the Indian, or the 
atlas of the heathen mythology, sustaining the universe. Nor 
did he keep himself at an awful distance, wrapped up in gloomy 
abstraction, or veiled in mysterious or supercilious dignity. 
He knew that the fraternity of mankind is a vast assemblage 
of good and evil, of light and darkness, and that the whole 
chain of human being is connected by the charities of life, by 
the ties of mutual dependance, and reciprocal benevolence. 

5. Such was Robert R. Livingston. He was not one of 
those factitious characters, who rise up and disappear like the 
Mountains of sand which the wind raises in the deserts; nor 
did he pretend to possess a mind illuminating all the depart- 
ments of knowledge, like that great elementary substance 
which communicates the principle of vitality to all animated 
nature :. but he will be ranked, by the judgement of impartial 
posterity, among the great men of the revolution; and in the 
faithful pages of history, he will be classed with George Clin- 
ton, John Jay, Pierre Van Cortlandt, Philip Schuyler, William 
Floyd, Philip Livingston, Gouverneur Morris, James Duane, 
John Morin Scott, and the other venerable and conscript 
fathers of the state. 

6. Fortunately for the interests of mankind, Mr. Living- 
ston became acquainted with Robert Fulton, a self-created 
great man, who has risen into distinguished usefulness, and 
into exalted eminence, by the energies of his own genius, un- 
ecto by extrinsick advantages. 

. Mr. Fulton had directed the whole force of his mind to 
nee learning and to mechanical philosophy. Plans 
of defence against maritime invasion and of sub-aquatick navi- 
gation had occupied his reflections. During the late war he 
was the Archimedes of his country. 

8. The poet was considered under the: influence of a dis- 
ordered imagination when he exclaimed, 


414 NORTH ‘AMERICAN READER. 


*“ Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afar 
Drag the slow barge or Grive the rapid car, 
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear 
The flying chariot through the fields of air.”—Darwim. 


9. The connexion between Livingston and Fulton realized, 
to a great degree, the vision of the poet. All former experi- 
ments had failed, and the genius of Fulton, aided and fostered 
by the publick spirit and discernment of Livingston, created 
one of the greatest accommodations for the benefit of man- 
kind. These illustrious men will be considered, through all 
time, as the benefactors of the world; they will be emphati- 
cally hailed as the Castor and Pollux of antiquity, lucida sidera, 
stars of excellent light and of most benign influence. 

10. Mr. Fulton was personally well known to most who 
hear me. To those who were favoured with the high com- 
munion of his superiour mind, I need not expatiate on the 
wonderful vivacity, activity, comprehension, and clearness of 
his intellectual faculties: and while he was meditating plans 
of mighty import for his future fame and his country’s good, 
he was cut down in the prime of his life and in the midst of 
his usefulness. 

11. Like the self-burning tree of Gambia, he was destroyed 
by the fire of his own genius, and the never-ceasing activity 
of a vigorous mind. And O! may we not humbly hope that 
his immortal spirit, disimbodied from its material encumbrance, 
has taken its flight to the world of pure intellect, “* where the 
wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest.” 


_ LESSON CXCVI. 
My Country.—J. K. Pavuxpine. 


1. Acatn Peace showered her blessings o’er the land, 
And happiness and Freedom, hand in hand. 
Went gayly round, and knocked at every door 
Hailing the rich, and biding with the poor, 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


While wondering nations watched our bright career, 
And looked, and longed to seek a refuge here, 
From all the countless pack of galling ills, 
That slaves still suffer, when the tyrant wills. 

. And oh! be such thy ever during fate, 

My native land! still to be good and great! 
Still to be dear to nations, doubly dear, 

The people’s hope, the tyrant’s lasting fear, 
Still to be cherished by the good and brave, 
Still to be hated by the dastard slave, 

That turns in sick’ning envy from thy face, 
The mirror that reflects his deep disgrace ; 

Still to be feared for thy far beck’ning smiles, 
That oft the despot of his prey beguiles, 

Still to be loved, by those who joy to see 

The race of man live happy, great, and free. 

. Yes! lone and spotless virgin of the west, 

No tyrant pillows on thy swelling breast, 

Thou bow’st before no despot’s guilty throne, 
But bend’st the knee to God, and him alone! 
Dear imp of Freedom, may’st thou live to see, 
In after days a glorious race like thee, 

Whom thy example haply shall inspire, 

With the pure glow of Freedom’s sacred fire, 
Teach them a sober way to break their chains, 
Wipe from fair Freedom’s brow those bloody stains 
That hair-brained zealots sprinkled madly there, 
And show what heaven made it, pure as fair, 
Till in good time a train of nymphs like thee, 
Blooming and happy, virtuous, wise, and free, 
Shall hail thee eldest sister of the train, 

And o’er regenerate earth, sweet cherubs reign 


415 


416 NORTH AMERICAN READER 


LESSON CXCVII. 


Advantages of Rhyme—Tuomas S. Grimke.—Southern 
Review. 


1. THERE is one advantage, which rhyme possesses over 
blank verse; and although we cannot cite authority for the 
opinion, we venture it as the experience of every poet, who 
has cultivated this department of verse. D’Alembert re- 
marks in his Essay on Taste, that reason itself is obliged, on 
some occasions, to make certain sacrifices to rhyme. But this 
is equally true of the versification employed by Homer, and 
Virgil, and Milton. 

2. “ He that writes in rhymes,” as Prior tells us, * dances 
in fetters ;” but so did Pindar and Horace. Now, the ad- 
vantage of rhyme over every other species of verse lies in 
this, that the very difficulty of obtaining suitable words leads di- 
rectly in the search, to new ideas, suggested by the successive 
words which the poet is endeavouring to accommodate to the 
preceding line. Every such writer has frequently found, that 
some of his best ideas and happiest forms of expression have 
arisen, in this manner, from the accidental associations of 
similar sounds. 


LESSON CXCVIII. 
The Tent-scene between Brutus and Cassius. —SHAKSPEARE. 


Cas. Tuat you have wronged me, doth appear in this : 
You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella, 
For taking bribes here of the Sardinians ; 
Wherein, my letters (praying on his side, 
Because I knew the man) were slighted off. 
Bru. You wronged yourself, to write in such a case. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 417 


Cas. At such a time as this, is it not meet 
That every nice offence should bear its comment? 
Bru. Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself 
Are much condemned to have an itching palm ; 

To sell and mart your offices for gold, 
To undeservers. 

Cas. Lan itching palm? 

You know that you are Brutus that speak this, 
Or, be assured, this speech were else your last. 

Bru. 'The name of Cassius honours this corruption, 
And chastisement doth therefore hide its head. 

Cas. Chastisement ! 

Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember ! 
Did not great Julius bleed for justice’ sake ? 
What villain touched his body, that did stab, 

And not for justice? What, shall one of us, 
That struck the foremost man of all this world, 
But for supporting robbers ; shall we now 
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes ? 
And sell the mighty space of our large honours, 
For so much trash as may be grasped thus ? 
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, 
Than such a Roman. 
Cas. Brutus, bay not me: 
I'll not endure it. You forget yourself, 
To hedge me in: I am a soldier, I, 
Older in practice, abler than yourself 
To make conditions. 
Bru. Go to! you are not, Cassius. 
Cas. I am. 
| Bru. I say you are not. 
\ Cas. Urge me no more: I shall forget myself: 
Have mind upon your health: tempt me no farther. 

Bru. Away, slight man! 

Cas. Is it possible ! 

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak, 

Must I give way and room to your rash choler? 
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ? 
Cas. Must I endure all this! 
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418 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Bru. All this!) Ay, more. Fret till your proud heart 
break : 
Go, show your slaves how cholerick you are, 
And make your bondmen tremble. . Must I budge ? 
Must I observe you?’ Must I stand and crouch 
Under your testy humour? © 
You shall digest the venom of your spleen, 
Though it do split you; for, from this day forth, 
I'll use you for my mirth ; yea, for my laughter, 
_ When you are waspish. 
Cas. Is it come to this ? 
Bru. You say you are a better soldier ; 
Let it appear so; make your vaunting true, 
And it shall please me well. For mine own part, 
I shall be glad to learn of noble men. 
Cas. You wrong me every way; you wrong me, Brutus ; 
1 said an elder soldier, not a better. 
Did I say better? 
Bru. If you did, I care not. 
Cas. When Cesar lived, he durst not thus have moved me. 
Bru. Peace, peace; you durst not so have tempted him. 
Cas. I durst not! | 
Bru. No. 
Cas. What? durst not tempt him ? 
Bru. For your life you durst not. 
Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love. 
I may do that I shall be sorry for. 
Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for. 
There is no terrour, Cassius, in your threats ; 
For I am armed so strong in honesty, 
That they pass by me as the idle wind, 
Which I respect not. I did send to you 
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me : 
I had rather coin my heart, 
And drop my blood for drachms, than to wring 
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash, 
By any indirection. I did send 
To you for gold to pay my legions ; 
Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius 2 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 419 


Should I have answered Caius Cassius so ? 
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, 
To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts, 
Dash him in pieces. ! 
Cas. I denied you not. 
Bru. You did. 
Cas. I did not: he was but a fool 
That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart. 
A friend should bear a friend’s infirmities ; 
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are. 
Bru. 1 do not, till you practise them on me. 
Cas. You love me not. 
Bru. I do not like your faults. 
Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. 
Bru. A flatterer’s would not, though they do appear 
As huge as high Olympus. 
Cas. Come Antony! and young Octavius, come! | 
Revenge yourself alone on Cassius : 
For Cassius is a-weary of the world; 
Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother ; 
Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed, 
Set in a note-book, learned and conned, by rote, 
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep | 
My spirit from my eyes! There is my dagger, 
And here my naked breast; within, a heart 
Dearer than Plutus’ mine, richer than gold ; 
If that thou be’st a Roman, take it forth ; 
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart. 
Strike as thou didst at Cesar; for I know, 
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better 
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius, 
Bru. Sheath your dagger : 
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope : 
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour. 
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb, 
That carries anger, as the flint bears fire ; 
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
And straight is cold again. 


420 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Cas. Hath Cassius lived 
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, 

When grief and blood ill-tempered vexeth him? 

Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too. 

Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand. 

Bru, And my heart too. 

Cas. O Brutus! 

Bru. What’s the matter ? 

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, 
When that rash humour which my mother gave me; 
Makes me forgetful ? 

Bru. Yes, Cassius ; and henceforth, 

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, 
He’ll think your mother chides, and leave you so. . 


LESSON CXCIX. 


Neglect of German Literatwre.—Proressor Henry.— 
Southern Review. 


1. THERE is no nation, whose literature has been more in- 
juriously treated than the German; none which has experi- 
enced more obstacles in forcing its works of merit upon the 
notice of the reading publick of other countries. It is not 
difficult to account for this fact, at least to a certain extent. 
While the more southern nations of Europe, including Eng- 
land, may be said to have started for the goal almost simulta- 
neously, Germany, harassed by civil wars and theological dis- 
putes, had no opportunity of signalizing herself in the arts 
which adorn and elevate existence. 

2. Rich as was the fund which she possessed in the lays 
of her Minnesingers, the diversity of dialects, and the want 
of a common currency in language, prevented her from deri- 
ving any profit from it. The reformation, while it remedied 
this evil, by raising up a common standard in Luther’s trans- 
lation of the Scriptures, and in the pulpit addresses of the 
clergy, was pregnant with other events by no means favoura- 
ble to the cause of the muses. 7 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 421 


.8. The various sects of religionists which subsequently 
arose, to whom experience had not yet imparted the salutary 
lesson of agreeing to differ, found in the discussion of their 
mutual differences an interest, to use no harsher epithets, too 
exclusive and absorbing. Even that degree of improvement 
in taste, which the eloquence of the church insensibly acquires 
in times and situations where the current of human feeling is 
left to pursue its unruffled course, was almost hopelessly ban- 
ished. 

4, Amidst rival aspirants to spiritual popularity, the sim- 
plicity of pathos was lost in the clang of dialecticks, and the 
ordinary subjects of human interest exchanged for topicks 
condemned by the wisdom of this world, and having no very 
obvious bearing on the next. A return to a better and more 
earthly state of things could not be expected, and, indeed, did 
not occur until these assailants had mutually exhausted all the 
weapons of controversy, without having effected the slightest 
breach in their respective theological battlements. 


LESSON CC. 
Eloquent Appeal in Behalf of Greece.—Cuay. 


1. Mr. Cuarrman,—There is reason to apprehend that a 
tremendous storm is ready to burst upon our happy country ; 
one which may call into action all our vigour, courage, and re- 
sources. Is it wise or prudent, then, sir, in preparing to breast 
the storm, if it must come, to talk to this nation of its incom- 
petency to repel European aggression, to lower its spirit, to 
weaken its moral energy, and to qualify it for easy conquest 
and base submission ! 

2. If there be any reality in the dangers which are sup- 
posed to encompass us, should we not animate the people, and 
adjure them to believe, as I do, that our resources are ample ; 
and that we can bring into the field a million of freemen ready 
to exhaust their last drop of blood, and to spend their last cent 
in the defence of the country, its liberty, and its institutions? 


422 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Sir, are we, if united, to be conquered by all Europe com- 
bined? No, sir, no united nation that resolves to be free, can 
be conquered. And has it come to this? 

3. Are we so humble, so low, so debased, that we dare not 
express our sympathy for suffering Greece ; that we dare not 
articulate our detestation of the brutal excesses of which she 
has been the bleeding victim, lest we might offend one or more 
of their imperial and royal majesties? Are we so mean, so 
base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our 
horrour, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and atrocious 
war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heaven ; at the 
ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated 
and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, 
and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the 
mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils ? 

4. But, sir, it is not for Greece alone that I desire to see 
the measure adopted. It will give her but little support, and 
that purely of a moral kind. It is principally for America, for 
the credit and character of our common country, for our own 
unsullied name, that I hope to see it pass. What appearance, 
Mr. Chairman, on the page of history, would a record like this 
exhibit ? 

5, “In the month of January, in the year of our Lord and 
Saviour, 1824, while all European Christendom beheld, with 
cold and unfeeling indifference, the unexampled wrongs and 
inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was 
made in the congress of the United States, almost the sole, 
the last, the greatest depository of human hope and freedom, 
the representatives of a gallant nation, containing a million of 
freemen ready to fly to arms, while the people of that nation 
were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feeling, and the 
whole continent, by one simultaneous emotion, was rising, and 
solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking high Heaven 
to spare and succour Greece, and to invigorate her arms, in 
her glorious cause, while temples and senate-houses were alike 
resounding with one burst of generous and holy sympathy, in 
the year of our Lord and Saviour, that Saviour of Greece and 
of us, a proposition was offered in the American congress to 
send a messenger to Greece, to inquire into her state and con- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 423 


dition, with a kind expression of our good wishes and our sym- 
pathies, and it was rejected !”” 

6. Go home, if you can; go home, if you dare, to your 
constituents, and tell them that you voted it down. Meet, if 
you can, the appalling countenance of those who sent you 
here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of 
your own sentiments; that you cannot tell how, but that some 
unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some inde- 
finable danger, drove you from your purpose ; that the spec- 
tres of cimeters, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before 
you, and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble 
feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independ- 
ence, and by humanity. 

7. I cannot, sir, bring myself to believe that such will be 
the feelings of a majority of this committee. But, for myself, 
though every friend of the cause should desert it, and I be left 
to stand alone with the gentleman from Massachusetts, I will 
give to his resolution the sie sanction of my unqualified ap- 
probation. 


o—eeeeee- *S 


LESSON CCI. 
The Patriotism of Truth.—W. GitmorE Simms, 


1. A FALSEHOOD must do harm in some way or other; and 
at once suggests the recognition of a principle, injurious to 
what is of far more importance to man than life, injurious to 
truth. Every departure from the truth throws back principle. 
In a previous reply, I intimated a doubt as to the propriety of 
resorting, in the last hope of humanity, to a subterfuge, where 
this was obviously the only mode of escape from a punish- 
ment not merely illegal, but unjust. 

2. But the case you have supposed is the very case in 
which falsehood must do harm, though you escape, and in 
which the sacrifice of the individual, sturdily adhering to the 
truth, may, and must be, productive of good. Your martyr- 
dom alone, would most probably overthrow the tyranny, by 


424 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


arousing the people, whom no less matter could inspirit into 
activity, to a just sense of the general danger. Such was the 
martyrdom of the Saviour, and fora like object, the safety and 
the circulation of the truth. I grant that martyrdom is not 
very desirable under any circumstances ; and, that it is not the 
common mind which will be willing to encounter it in any be- 
half. But there are men, fortunately for mankind, to whom 
the truth itself brings consolation enough, and whom glorious 
memories and a perpetually-musing gratitude keep holy through 
long ages, and thus reward for their suffermgs under the 
scourge and on the rack. 

3. What would have been, what would be, the condition of 
man, if such were not the case? Where would be our glory, 
our security, our happiness, but for those great men, who, with 
a spirit setting at defiance every weakness of the flesh, have 
gone fearlessly into the gloomy dens of ancient. errour, de- 
nouncing the superstition, overthrowing the idol, and setting up 
the true God, which is Truth? All innovation upon established 
custom is invariably and sturdily resisted; and men fight for 
their prejudices, where they would not fight for their country. 

4. The teacher of the unknown Truth has been stoned to 
death, in all past time, by the serviles of ancient Errour. In 
this way perished the Saviour and the saints, not to speak of 
the long array of the just made perfect, the sage and the phi- 
losopher, of all who have ever shown a desire to honour and to 
seek out the truth, in the teeth of unholy prejudice and unwise 
passion. Our condition would indeed be lamentable, if there 
were not some few consecrated and daring spirits, in every na- 
tion, who could appreciate the true nature of man, without 
reference to self. 

5. Who, looking beyond their own day and destiny, could 
stand upon the moral Pisgah, and direct their people to the 
distant promise. Who, encouraged and sustained by higher 
and holier considerations than the love of gain or aggrandize- 
ment, or the yet meaner desire of safety and obscurity, could 
challenge the Tyrant of Errour and abusive custom, in the 
highways, and, like the peasant Tell, amidst the spears of his 
enemies, refuse, though standing alone, to bow down in viola- 
tion of the truth, before the cap of usurpation. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 425 


LESSON CCILI. 
The Idle Schoolboy.—Joun Inman. 


1. In a beautiful village on the west bank of the Hudson, 
lived two boys, whose names were George Wilson and Thomas 
Macfarlane. They were both tolerably good boys, that is, 
they never fought, or told lies, or took what did not belong to 
them, or did mischief for mischief’s sake, as too many lads 
do ; they were good-natured, industrious, and obedient to their 
parents, respectiul to their elders, and cheerful and obliging 
among their school-fellows and playmates. 

2. So far, there was but little difference between them; but 
there was one point in which one little boy could hardly be 
more at variance with another, than was George Wilson from 
his friend and companion. ‘Thomas loved books with a re- 
sistless passion, while to George they were the most wearisome 
things in the world. 

3. Thomas delighted in reading story-books, accounts of 
travels, and, above all, works that treated of.natural history ; 
of the habits and instincts of the various beasts, the beautiful 
plumage and melodious song of birds, the wonderful and in- 
genious contrivances of insects, of the huge elephant, mightiest 
of all that treads the earth, the sagacious marmot, the insatiable 
otter, the fierce eagle, and the hummingbird, that loveliest of 
the feathered kind, the methodical bee, and the precious silk- 
worm, with all their admirable works and modes of providing 
for their own wants and the-safety of their progeny. 

4, He had little time to read, for his father was only a poor 
farmer, and there was work enough for him to do in every 
season of the year except the winter; it is true, that he was 
but a little boy, and could not undertake hard work, such as 
ploughing, or mowing, or building fences, or getting in the 
crops; but there are many things to be done upon a farm, 
which even little boys can undertake, and Thomas was never 
idle. 


426 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


5. The summer in which this story commences, was the 
first in which he had been spared for school ; and although he 
did not like grammar, and arithmetick, and geography so well 
as he did the books for which we have already mentioned his 
fondness, yet he gave them up cheerfully, and devoted all his 
leisure time at home to his lessons, because he knew that it 
would please his father in the first place, and in the second, 
because he could not be sure of going to school another year, 
except in the three winter months, and therefore had no time 
to lose. 

6. Besides, he had sense enough to reflect, that what he 
learned at school was likely to be more useful to him than 
what he read in his favourite books, although not quite so 
pleasant; and his father had early made him understand, that 
out of useful things acquired in youth, grow pleasant things to 
be enjoyed in manhood. 

7. As we have already said, George Wilson was in many 
things as good a boy as his companion, Thomas; but he dis- 
liked books in general, and schoolbooks in particular, with an 
“aversion that almost amounted to hatred. He was not an idle 
boy; he would work from morning till night as hard as his 
years and strength would permit. 

8. But to be cooped up in a little room every ‘day i in the 
bright pleasant summer, poring over a stupid grammar, or hor- 
rible slate, or the “hard maps,” when he would rather be scam- 
pering over the hills, or down by the river-side fishing, or help- 
ing his father in the hayfield, or going into the woods to bring 
home the cows, or lying at full length upon his back, listening 
to the song of the gay birds, and the chirp of the grasshop- 
pers, or, in short, working or playing at any thing out of 
doors, was, in his estimation, the very perfection of hardship ; 
and as he could not or would not perceive what was to be 
gained by it in the end, he considered it little better than rank 
tyranny in his father, although, to do the boy justice, no thought 
of resisting his father’s will ever entered his mind. 

9. The summer passed away, and winter came and went. 
Thomas Macfarlane made good use of his time and oppor- 
tunity, but George was still the idle schoolboy and his year of 
education scarcely added to his stock of learning. He had 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 427 


become a tolerable reader, but gained no increase of taste or 
inclination for the practice; of grammar and geography he 
knew almost nothing ; and his writing might still have passed 
for the first efforts of a better penman, driven to the employ- 
ment of his left hand, by the loss or mutilation of the right. 

10. As for arithmetick, that he never could get on with, at 
least, so he declared himself, and he could apply to himself 
literally, and with perfect truth, the well-known schoolboy 
rhymes, in which the torments of Multiplication, Division, 
Practice, and the Rule of Three, are specifically designated. 
His father’s circumstances, and his own increased strength, 
denied him another complete year of trial, and the little school- 
ing he was able to gain during the next three or four winters, 
did scarcely more than serve to keep up in him the very scanty 
acquirements we have described. 


LESSON CCIII. 
The Same Concluded. 


» 1. Time passes, and so do the lives of men. Old Mr. Wil- 
son died, and George, now twenty-six years of age, succeeded 
him in the farm. He married a wife, and children were born 
unto him; and in other respects his career was for many years 
almost the counterpart of his father’s. He continued to la- 
bour in the same field, and send his produce to the same 
markets; living in the same little old house; and like him, 
too, finding himself, year after year, just as poor on the last 
day of December as he had been on the previous first of 
January. : 

2. He saw his neighbours increasing in wealth and pros- 
perity ; boys who had gone to the same school and at the same 
time with himself, and like him, the sons of poor farmers, rising 
aboye their original sphere, their possessions enlarged by judi- 
cious enterprise, their enjoyments augmented, not only by the 
increase of means, but still more by the improved taste and 
expanded knowledge, for the acquisition of which competence 


428 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


gives facilities, and their children preparing by a liberal and 
complete education for a career of usefulness, and, perhaps, 
the attainment of the highest honours, accessible, in this fa- 
voured land, to all men of intelligence and talent, whatever 
may be their origin or station. 

3. Georgé was not of a complaining or envious disposition, 
but he could not help noticing the contrast between his own 
unimproving fortunes, and those of almost every one around 
him. It did not occur to him that the real cause was to be 
found in their greater intelligence and knowledge. ‘The seeds 
which had been planted in their minds in youth, had been kept 
alive by nourishment, and cherished in their springing up and 
progress to maturity, while his understanding had lain fallow; 
and the harvest showed who had pursued the wiscr course. 

4. He only saw that his condition remained just the same, 
while that of all his neighbours was improving ; and he con- 
sidered it altogether the result of their good fortune, although, 
if he had had eyes to see and intelligence to understand, there 
was no secret in the matter. ‘The means of their prosperity 
were open as the daylight. | 

5. Their superiour knowledge and judgement enabled them 
to take advantage of the various improvements in agriculture, 
and in farming utensils, that were made from time to time ; 
to avail themselves of new and more profitable markets for 
the sale of their grain and wool, and other produce ;_ and to en- 
gage in safe and prudent speculations, such as frequently pre- 
sent themselves! to almost every man, but are appreciated and 
made use of only by the alert and the judicious. 

6. All this was above George Wilson’s comprehension ; 
his neglected education had left him a mere labourer, without 
sagacity to understand advantages offered for his acceptance, 
or to foresee those which might be obtained in future ; and he 
had no thought beyond ploughing, sowing, and reaping, just as 
his father had done before him, while his neighbours success- 
fully adopted newer and better systems, and were prompt to 
seize all the opportunities afforded by an improving state of 
science and society. 

7. Thus he went on for several years, working hard and 
living frugally, yet gaining nothing more than a bare subsist- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 429 


ence by his toil; and thus perhaps he would have continued 
till his death, had no misfortune overtaken him. But a life 
without misfortune seldom falls to the lot of man, and that of 
George Wilson was no exception to the general rule. An un- 
productive season plunged him into debt, and the loss of a few 
hundred dollars by the failure of a merchant to:whom he had 
sold a quantity of produce upon credit, for the sake of getting 
a higher price, completed his embarrassment. 

8. Ruin stared him in the face, and his creditors becoming 
urgent for the payment of their claims against him, he was 
compelled to think of selling his farm, and preparing himself 
for still greater privations than even those he had been accus- 
tomed to encounter and endure. It was a painful extremity, 
and George could hardly bear to think of it at first; but ne- 
cessity is a stern master, and before many months had passed 
away, he was constrained not only to dwell upon the measure 
in his mind, but to take the necessary steps for putting it in 
execution. 

9. It happened, that at this period, George received a visit 
from an uncle whom he had never seen; his father’s younger 
brother, who, in early life, being of a roving and somewhat 
unsettled disposition, had taken it into his head to learn a trade, 
and for that purpose, to try his fortune in the city of New 
York; but had afterward gone to sea, and finally established 
himself in one of the western states, those fertile and rapidly 
advancing regions to which so many emigrants were tempted, 
some twenty or thirty years ago, by the hope of gaining wealth 
at less expenditure of time and Jabour than was indispensable 
in the more thickly peopled states that lie upon the Atlantick. 

10. At the moment of his arrival, his nephew had just suc- 
ceeded in obtaining a purchaser for his farm, and was anx- 
iously debating within himself what course he should adopt, 
what means resort to for a livelihood. He consulted his 
visiter, of course, and the immediate reply was, ‘“* Come to 
Ohio.” 

11. But little argument was needed to persuade one so 
totally empoverished, and so little capable of judging for him- 
self, as the hero of our tale; and it was soon determined that 
the uncle should return forthwith to his own residence, for the 


430 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


purpose of making preparations, and that George should fol- 
low him as soon as he could settle up his affairs, and convert 
his whole possessions into money. 

12. A few months sufficed to accomplish this last requisite, 
and early in the spring, George Wilson departed with his 
family, and his little stock of wealth, from the village in which 
his lite had hitherto been passed. It is not our purpose to 
follow him on his journey, which was accomplished slowly, 
but without any accident or adventure worthy to be recorded ; 
but to transport the reader at once to the flourishing little town 
of B , in the northwestern part of the state of Ohio, not 
far from which was the portion of land, consisting of several 
hundred acres, purchased for George Wilson by his uncle. 

13. The travellers arrived at B——, a little before evening, 
and were surprised to find the inhabitants engaged in a general 
demonstration of joy, as if at the occurrence of some happy 
event, in which all were interested, and by which all were very 
much delighted. ‘The bells were sending out loud and merry 
peals from the steeples of the only two churches in the place, 
a gun was repeatedly fired upon the green before the court- 
house, the people thronged the streets with glad looks, uttering 
frequent shouts of congratulation, flags were waving from high 
poles set up at the corners, a band of musick was playing in 
the great room of the principal hotel, and the usual appear- 
ance of bustle and activity in business, seemed to have given 
place to a general expression of publick satisfaction. 

14. The curiosity of our emigrant was, of course, much 
excited, and, as soon as he had established his family in the 
hotel, at which they were to pass the night, and he could gain 
the attention of the landlord, who seemed as much delighted 
as the rest, he begged to know the occasion of all this glad- 
ness and rejoicing. 

15. “ We have just got through our county election,” said the 
host, *¢ and the successful candidate is a great favourite. There 
was great oppusition in other parts of the county, where the 
people do not know him as well as we do; but all is right 
now, and so we are burning a little powder for joy.” 

_ “T suppose he is a townsman of yours, then.” 
“Yes: he has lived here almost from the time of the very first 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 431 


house-raising ; for you see our B is but a young place, 
although it is so flourishing.” 

16. ‘And what was the election for, if I may ask ?”’ 

“« Member of congress.” 

“ And the candidate is a lawyer, I suppose ?”” 

‘‘No: he is a farmer; owns that large and thriving estate 
you passed just before you came into the town. He is one of 
our richest men, and one that has more learning too than 
nine tenths of the lawyers anywhere about here; but it is 
not for his money, or his learning, that we are glad to have 
him for our representative ; it is because he is a smart, sensi- 
ble man in the first place, and a right up-and-down honest man 
into the bargain. That is what we all stood up for him for.” 

17. “Is he a native of this state ?” 

“No: he is from York; he came out here more than 
twenty years ago, and settled right down where he is now; in 
fact, we consider him almost the founder of this town. When 
he first came here, he was poor, and there were only a few 
farmhouses scattered about ; he and the town have grown up 
into consequence together.” 

“‘ Well, he must be considerable of a man from your ac- 
count ; what is his name, pray 2” 

18. “ Macfarlane.” 

“ Macfarlane? from York state you say; not Thomas 
Macfarlane surely, my old schoolmate ?”’ 

“Yes: his name is Thomas, sure enough; and if you 
were a schoolmate of his, you have something to be proud of, - 
I can tell you.” 

19. And it was indeed Thomas Macfarlane; that same 
Thomas, who, thirty years before, had so improved the time 
which George had wasted. His manhood had fulfilled the 
promise of his youth, and the seed then sown had taken root, 
and sprung up green and flourishing; and these were the 
fruits it had brought forth, wealth, respect, the esteem and con- 
fidence of his fellow-citizens, and an honourable place in the 
councils of the nation. 

20. “ Alas,” thought George, when he was again alone, 
“JT see now the truth of what Tom said to me, that ‘ one might 
almost as well be without hands as without education.” He 


i 
432 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 

made good use of his time and opportunities, and he is rich 
useful, honoured, and happy ; 1 am a poor worthless creature, 
struggling with hardship almost at the close of life, and scarcely 
hoping to be any thing better than I am, for there is no tims 
now to amend theerrours of my youth. This is my reward 
for having been an IDLE SCHOOLBOY.” 


LESSON CCIV. 


Character of the Eloquence and Writings of Robert Hall.— 
SAMUEL Daty Lane rree.—Knickerbacker. 


1. Tue surest evidence of Robert Hall’s greatness is to be 
found in the very fact of his celebrity. That, im a nation, 
such as England, abounding not merely with intellect and in- 
telligence, but with men distinguished in every walk of litera- 
ture, and every branch of science; where the grades of so- 
ciety are so closely knit and reticulated together, that there is 
but little access to fame,save by the beaten roads of influence 
and power, and where a Mately and pensioned church, secure 
in the smiles of royalty, and reposing in dignity, on the fame 
of its mighty names, had haughtily excluded all dissenting sects 
from its pale, and operating, by its influence, upon publick 
opinion, had almost proscribed them; till men of genius had 
no chance of eminence, save in the renunciation of their pre- 
vious opinions aad the adoption of the favoured creed. 

2. ‘That in such a country, the obscure pastor of a dissent- 
ing congregation, residing in a provincial town, beyond the 
reach of the rays of favour; and of habits singularly retiring 
and unobtrusive, should have filled the land with his fame, and 
raised himself to an illustrious station in the aristocracy of 
mind, is in itself a striking evidence of amazing talent ; but 
that his works, after the transient subjects which had called 
them into existence have been forgotten, should still retain the 
power and the splendour of creative genius, and enchant not. 
less in the closet by their excellence, than they did from the 
pulpit by their eloquence, is a fact that must place him among 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 433 


the first ornaments of the age; and forms, of itself, a brighter 
halo of practical glory than all the elaborate commendations 
delighted criticism could confer. 

3. The chief excellence of Robert Hall’s writings is to be 
found, not in those isolated passages of lofty beauty which 
frequently dazzle us in our popular authors, but to arrive at 
which we must wade through long pages of comparative ste- 
rility. It consists, not in daring flights of thought which we 
sometimes. pursue with wonder, till, like the arrow in the 
/Eneiad, they turn to fire from their own sublimity: nor does 
it derive any charms from a studied parade of aggregated quo- 
tations, which men of learning too often transplant to their 
works, like specimens in a collection, to glitter coldly, without 
giving any idea of the mine of richness from whence they 
sprung; but it is to be found in a sustained energy and ex- 
panded grandeur throughout. It never blinds us by an op- 
pressive splendour, but is always attractive in its clear and 
steady light. 

4, He has studied the ancients with a just perception, a 
proper effect, and his works evince not a classick imagery 
without its life; but a transfusion of its spirit, an exquisite 
blending of the classick richnessy and the classick taste. 
Here, perhaps, in a greater degree than any work with which 
we are acquainted, will be evidenced the great value which a 
just and accurate knowledge of his native language gives to 
any author. Mr. Hall studied English with a laborious appli- 
cation, but to an admirable purpose; delicately alive to the 
propriety of words, he has adapted them in his writings with 
a nicety which seems to have destroyed the doctrine of syno- 
nymes, and strikes us with the fine effect of a finished paint- 
ing, where distinct and brilliant colours blend into a delicious 
harmony, which captivates the attention before taste has had 
leisure to analyze the reason. 

5. Nor is this difficult beauty more perceptible than the 
depth of his thoughts, or the power of his imagination. In the 
splendid language which he himself applied to Burke, we are 
unable to withstand the magick and fascination of his elo- 
quence. The excursions of his genius are immense. His 
imperial fancy has laid all nature under tribute, and collected 


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434 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


stores from every scene of the creation, and every walk of art. 
So select are his images, so fraught with tenderness, and so 
rich in colours * dipped in heaven,” that he who can read with- 
out rapture may have merit as a reasoner, but must resign al] 
pretensions to taste and sensibility. 

6. Such is Robert Hall. The destiny of his fame is as 
certain as his glory was remarkable. If, without effort, and 
almost without intention, to have risen to be one of the first 
authors in his native language; if to have the happy art of 
combining the profoundest thought with the sweetest elo- 
quence; if to have attained the widest celebrity as a pulpit 
orator, and to-have sustained that celebrity, by leaving to pos- 
terity sermons equalling the most finished productions of any 
age; if, attached to an obscure and uninfluential sect, he has 
risen till the grandeur of his genius is bright upon the world, 
and has yet, undazzled by fame, and untainted by celebrity, 
left a record of the lofty purity of his principles, which has 
given to the deepest religion, the blended charms of a faultless 
philosophy, and a noble literature ; if these be any evidences 
of a great and lasting reputation, Robert Hall will be known 
to distant times as familiarly as to us, and his usefulness be only 
bounded by the duration of the language he has adorned. 


LESSON CCV. 
Greek Literature.—Lecare.—Southern Review. 


1. It is impossible to contemplate the annals of Greek lit- 
erature and art, without being struck with them, as by far the 
most extraordinary and brilliant phenomenon in the history of 
the human mind. The very language, even in its primitive sim- 
' plicity, as it came down from the rhapsodists who celebrated 
the exploits of Hercules and Theseus, was as great a wonder 
as any it records. 

2. All the other tongues that civilized men have spoken, 
are poor, and feeble, and barbarous, in comparison of it. Its 
compass and flexibility, its riches and its powers, are alto- 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 435 


gether unlimited. It not only expresses with precision, all 
that is thought or known at any given period, but it enlarges 
itself naturally, with the progress of science, and affords, as 
if without an effort, a new phrase, ora systematick nomencla- 
ture, whenever one is called for. 

3. It is equally adapted to every variety of style and sub- 
ject, to the most shadowy subtlety of distinction, and the ut- 
most exactness of definition, as well as to the energy and the 
pathos of popular eloquence, to the majesty, the elevation, the 
variety Of the Epick, and the boldest license of the Dithy- 
rambick, no less than to the sweetness of the Elegy, the sim- 
plicity of the Pastoral, or the heedless gayety and delicate 
characterization of Comedy. 

4. Above all, what is an unspeakable charm, a sort of nai- 
veté is peculiar to it, and appears in all those various styles, 
and is quite as becoming and agreeable in an historian or a phi- 
losopher, Xenophon for instance, as in the light and jocund 
numbers of Anacreon. 

5. Indeed, were there no other object in learning Greek 
but to see to what perfection language is capable of being car- 
ried, not only as a medium of communication, but as an in- 
atrument of thought, we see not why the time of a young man 
would not be just as well bestowed in acquiring a knowledge 
ef it, for all the purposes, at least of a liberal or elementary 
education, as in learning Algebra, another specimen of a lan- 
guage or arrangement of signs perfect in its kind. 


LESSON CCVI. 


Dialogue :—ALExanneER the Great, and a RoppER.— 
Dr. AIKIN. 


Alerander. Wuat, art thou the Thracian robber, of whose 
exploits I have heard so much ? 

Robber. I ama Thracian, and.a soldier. 

Ilex. A soldier! a thief, a plunderer, an assassin! the pest 
of the country! I could honour thy courage, but I must detest 
and punish thy crimes. 


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436 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Robber. What have I done, of which you can complain ? 

Alex. Hast thou not set at defiance my authority; violated 
the publick peace, and passed thy life in injuring the persons 
and properties of thy fellow-subjects ? 

Robber. Alexander! I am your captive; I must hear what 
you please to say, and endure what you please to inflict. 
But my soul is unconquered ; and if I reply at all to your re- 
proaches, I will reply like a free man. 

Alex. Speak freely. - Far be it from me to take the advan- 
tage of my power, to silence those with whom I deign to con- 
verse. 

Robber. I must then answer your question by another. 
How have you passed your life? 

Aller. Like a hero. Ask Fame, and she will tell you. 
Among the brave, I have been the bravest: among sovereigns, 
the noblest : among conquerors, the mightiest. 

Robber. And does not Fame speak of me too? Was 
there ever a bolder captain of a more valiant band? Was 
there ever, but I scorn to boast. You yourself know that I 
have not been easily subdued. 

Ilex. Still, what are you but a robber, a base, dishonest 
robber 2 

Robber. And what is a conqueror? Have not you, too, 
gone about the earth like an evil genius, blasting the fair fruits 
of peace and industry; plundering, ravaging, killing, without 
law, without justice, merely to gratify an insatiable lust for 
dominion? All that I have done to a single district with a 
hundred followers, you have done to whole nations with a hun- 
dred thousand. Itt have stripped individuals, you have ruined 
kings and princes. If I have burnt a few hamlets, you have 
desolated the ay me kingdoms and cities of the 
earth. What is, then, difference, but that as you were 
born a king, and I a private man, you have been able to be- 
come a mightier robber than I? 

Jtlex. But if I have taken like a king, I have given like a 
king. If [have subvertedeempires, I have foundéd greater. 
| have cherished arts, commére& and philosophy. 

Robber. I, too, have freely given to the poor what I took 
from the rich. I have established order and discipline among 
the most ferocious of mankind, and have stretched out my 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 1” Rae 


protecting arm over the oppressed. I know, indeed, little of 
the philosophy you talk of, but I believe neither you nor I 
shall ever atone to the world for half the mischief we have 
done it. 

Alex. Leave me. ‘Take off his chains, and use him well. 
Are we then so much alike? Alexander like arobber? Let 
me reflect. 


LESSON CCVII. 
Twilight. —IKnicKERBOCKER. 


1.’Tis the quiet hour of feeling, 
Now the busy day is past, 
And the twilight shadows stealing, 
O’er the world their mantle cast ; 
Now the spirit, worn and saddened, 
Which the cares of day had bowed, 
By its gentle influence gladdened, 
Forth emerges from the cloud ; 
2. While on Memory’s magick pages, 
Rise our long-lost joys to light, 
Like shadowy forms of other ages 
From the oblivious breast of night ; 
And the loved and lost revisit 
Our fond hearts, their place of yore, 
Till we long with them to inherit 
Realms above, to part no more. 


3. There we search for hidden treasures, 

Buried in the vault of time, 

Thought its labyrinth-pathway measures, 
And restores them to their prime. 

Then with eager, anxious feeling, 
Secret things we would unfold, 

And, its awful tomb unsealing, 
Wish the doubtful future told ; 


438 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


4, Long to know the drops of sorrow 

Mingled with our draught of life, 

What the unknown, untried to-morrow, 
Hath of care, and toil, and strife ; 

And the winged hours of pleasure 
Which may cross the weary way, 

Ere our destined course we measure, 
And return to kindred clay. 


5. Morning hath her song of gladness, 
Sultry noon, its fervid glare, 
Evening hours, their gentle sadness, 
Night its dreams, and rest from care ; 
But the pensive twilight ever 
Gives its own sweet fancies birth, 
Waking visions, that may never 
Know reality on earth. 


LESSON CCVIII. 


Eddystone Lighthouse.—Gutian C. VERPLANCK. 


1. Tue incidental mention of the ultimate advantages de- 
rived by the art of navigation from the labours of Dollond, sug- 
gests to my mind another illustration, and recalls the name of 
JOHN Smeaton. He was by regular trade a philosophical 
instrument maker; but his active mind had taken a broad 
range of rational curiosity and employment, embracing almost 
every thing in science or art that could throw light on mechan- 
ical contrivance. 

2. His inventions of this sort were very numerous and inge- 
nious, but his solid fame rests chiefly upon the erection of the 
Eddystone Lighthouse. Its site was one of the utmost con- 
sequence to the naval and commercial marine of Great Brit- 
ain, and, indeed, of the world. As it was to be placed on a 
reef of rocks, far from the main land, and exposed to the 
whole force of the waves of the Atlantick, the building of a 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 439 


durable edifice there had baffled the skill of the ablest archi- 
tects. 

3. At that period, about the middle of the last century that 
branch of marine construction which relates to piers, moles, 
artificial harbours, breakwaters, &c., was far from that scien- 
tifick developement it has since received, and which it in no 
small degree owes to Smeaton himself. The commissioners 
for rebuilding the lighthouse, aware of the difficulties they had — 
to encounter, reported that this was not an undertaking for a 
mere architect, however skilful, but required the talent of some 
one eminent for general mechanical skill and contrivance. 

4, Smeaton was selected. His plan was wholly original, 
having been suggested immediately by the consideration of 
the means used by nature to give durability to her works, and 
taking the model of strength and resistance to the elements 
which she had given in the trunk of the oak.* The execution 
corresponded with the boldness and perfection of the first 
conception. 

5. There are few narratives of more intense interest or 
varied instruction than his own account of this great work, 
which is among my earliest and most vivid recollections of 
this sort of reading. I will not attempt to mar it by a meager 
abstract. It is enough to say that this noble effort of mechan- 
ical genius, thus grafted upon and made part of the rocky bot- 
tom of the sea, and resisting the immense might of the ocean, 
which it faces, has never been surpassed or improved upon, 
but has been the model or guide of numerous subsequent 
works of marine construction of great excellence and un- 
bounded utility. 


* “The building,” says one of Smeaton’s biographers, “ is 
modelled on the trunk of an oak, which spreads out in a sweep- 
ing curve near the roots, 80 as to give breadth and strength to 
its base, diminishes as it rises, and then again swells out as it 
approaches to the bushy head, to give room for the strong in- 
sertion of the principal boughs. These boughs are repre- 
sented by a broad curved solid stone cornice, the effect of 
which is to throw off the heavy seas, which, when thus sud- 
denly cnecked, fly up, as is said- by eye-witnesses, fifty or a 
hundred feet above the top of the building, and are thus pre- 
vented striking and injuring the lantern containing the lights, 
though for the moment enclosing it all around.” 


440 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


6. The ancient Pharaohs of Egypt, in the pride of con- 
quest or the vain hope of immortality, exhausted the labours 
of millions of slaves to rear immense pyramids and tall and 
huge granite obelisks. The imperial Trajan, the most illus- 
trious name of Rome after the loss of her liberties, decorated 
his forum with that magnificent column which still bears his 
own name, and upon which the sculptor lavished his art, to 
commemorate the victories of its founder over the Dacian bar- 
barians, as they were called ; that is to say, over a race of free 
and brave men, who had struggled for their liberties against 
. the grasping tyranny of Rome, with a courage and talent wor- 
thy of a better fate. 

7. Napoleon, whose sublime genius and grand aspirations 
were yet unhappily alloyed by so great an admixture of the 
meaner ambition of ordinary kings and conquerors, reared, in 
his own capital, the lofty brazen column of his victories, cast 
from artillery won on the bloody fields of Marengo, and Jenna, 
and Austerlitz. Upon that vast bronze, the veteran compan- 
ions of his glories can behold, in bold relief, the storied ima- 
ges of their campaigns, their toils, and their exploits, and those 
of their chief and their hero. 

8. But in the eye of sober reason, how poor and how vain 
are these monuments, of pride, of power, of glory, and even 
of genius, when compared to. the solitary, sea-girt, unadorned 
Atlantick tower, which perpetuates the name, the talent, and 
the unambitious labours of John Smeaton! The glories of 
the conquerors have vanished like the morning mist. 

9. Their conquests and their empires have crumbled into 
dust; but the Eddystone tower stands firm amidst the tempest 
and the uproar of the ocean; and there, and wherever else its 
form is imitated and its principles applied, as on our own coasts 
and on the shores of our western lakes, it throws its broad light 
across the storm and the gloom, giving safety to the mariner 
and guiding that commerce which, making the natural riches 
of every climate the common property of all, is surely destined 
to bind together the whole family of man in the mutual and 
willing interchange of art, and learning, and science, and mor- 
als, and freedom. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 441 


LESSON CCIX. 
Claims of: the Indians. —Cou. Drayton.—Southern Review. 


1. We are not unapprized of the existence of. a class of 
moralists, which limits the right to land on this continent to the 
Aborigines, and to those who derive their title from them. We 
shall not formally discuss this position, which we conceive to 
be more proper for the abstraction of schoolmen, than for the 
investigation of statesmen and jurists. Those lawless Indian 
hordes, once’so powerful and terrible, capable of crushing the 
united bands of our ancestors, have now dwindled into com- 
parative insignificance. 

2. Their numbers reduced, their warlike fire quenched ; 
instead of inspiring fear, they are objects of commiseration. 
Policy and humanity dictate that they should be treated with 
considerate and liberal kindness, not, as some insist, because 
we have trampled upon their sovereignty, diminished their 
population, and usurped their soil, but because from the nat- 
ural course of circumstances, they have become empoverished 
and helpless, the rude savage invariably contracting the vices 
without participating in the virtues and useful attainments of 
his civilized neighbours. 

3. We have never been able to discover any force in the 
argument, that as the Indians were the Aborigines of North 
America, and were scattered over its soil, they, therefore, by 
the law of nature, were the owners of it ; but we do discover an 
infinity of injurious consequences arising from the acknowl- 
edgment of the exclusive empire of the savage, over a terri- 
tory never cultivated by his arm, nor seen by his eye. We 
can perceive neither justice, nor wisdom, nor humanity, in ar- 
resting the progress of order and science, that unproductive 
and barren wastes may be reserved for the roaming barbarian. 

4. We shall never justify the tyranny of the strong, the 
vigilant, and the enlightened, over the feeble, the indolent, and 
the simple. We contend for no more, than that our fore- 

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442 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


fathers, with untroubled consciences, might seat themselves 
upon fields far distant from human habitations, might possess 
themselves of forests which the red man had never traversed. 
and of rivers and lakes, whose surface he had never ruffled, 
but in the distant pursuit of his enemy or his prey. 

5. * All mankind,” says Vattell, “ have an equal right to 
the things that have not yet fallen into the possession of any 
one; and these things belong to the first possessor.” ‘There 
is another celebrated question to which the discovery of the 
new world has principally given rise. It is asked, if a nation 
may lawfully take possession of a vast country, in which there 
are found none but erratick nations, incapable, by the smallness 
of their numbers, to people the whole ? 

6. * We have already said, that the earth belongs to the 
whole human race, and was designed to furnish it with subsist- 
ence : if each nation had resolved from the beginning, to ap- 
propriate to itself a vast country, that the people might live 
only by hunting, fishing, and wild fruits, our globe would not 
be sufficient to maintain a tenth part of its present inhabitants. 
People, then, have not deviated from the views of nature in 
confining the Indians to their narrow limits.” 

7. To lay down rules distinguishing cases, in which na- 
tions may, and in which they may not take possession of. va- 
cant lands, would be difficult, if not impracticable. It would, 
we presume, be denied by no one, that the means of the In- 
dian’s subsistence, in his accustomed modes, should not be 
invaded ; but that what he neither uses nor needs, nor ever 
could have an opportunity of even claiming, may be appro- 
priated by others, would seem to be equally just. Upon this, 
as upon many other questions under the. law of nature, per- 
plexities will occur: in disposing of them, we ought to be gov- 
erned hy the precepts of religion and morals, which teach us, 
that power is not synonymous with right, and that peculiar for- 
bearance should be observed towards the defenceless and the 
ignorant. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 443 


LESSON CCX. 
Government.—STEPHEN Exuiottr.—Southern Review. 


1. IN government, as in science, it is useful often to review 
its progress, and to revert even to its simplest elements. It 
will be salutary frequently to ascertain how far society and laws, 
in their present condition, accord with those which we have 
been accustomed to consider as their first and purest _ prin- 
ciples, how far, in the lapse of time, they may have deviated 
from their original form and structure. 

2. Even when we recur to inquiries merely speculative, to 
imaginary “ social contracts,” to abstract rights, we may often 
gather instruction, and detect some concealed or neglected 
truth, applicable to our own times and to our own immediate 
condition. 

3. But when a government is derived not from fictitious 
assumptions, not from ancient or obscure sources or traditions, 
but from actual and specifick agreement; when many and va- 
rious interests have been combined and compromised, and a 
written covenant has assured to many parties, rights, and pow- 
ers, and privileges, it becomes a duty to revise this compact 
frequently and strictly, that no one entitled to its protection 
may be deprived, through inadvertence on the one part, or en- 
croachment on the other, of his vested rights ; and, that no 
changes may be introduced into the compact, but by the actual 
assent of those who are parties to the covenant. 


LESSON CcCxy. 


The Albatross.—SamueL Daty LanetrReEE. 
‘‘ *Tis said the Albatross never rests.”-—BUFFON. 

1, Were the fathomless waves in magnificence toss, 
Homeless and high soars the wild Albatross ; 
Unwearied, undaunted, unshrinking, alone, 

The ocean, his empire; the tempest, his throne. 


444 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


2. When the terrible whirlwind raves wild o’er the surge, 
And the hurricane howls out the mariner’s dirge, 
In thy glory thou spurnest the dark-heaving sea, 
Proud bird of the ocean-world, homeless and free. 
3. When the winds are at rest, and the sun in his glow, 
And the glittering tide sleeps in beauty below, 
In the pride of thy power triumphant above, 
With thy mate thou art holding thy revels of love. 
4, Untired, unfettered, unwatched, unconfined, 
Be my spirit like thee, in the world of the mina, 
No leaning for earth, e’er to weary its flight, 
And fresh as thy pinions in regions of light. 


ee 


LESSON CCXII. 


Extract from a Speech of Patrick Henry in the Legislature 
of Virginia, in favour of permitting the British Refugees 
to return to the United States. 


1. Mr. Cuatrman,—The personal feelings of a politician 
ought not to be permitted to enter these walls. The question 
before us is a national one, and in deciding it, if we act wisely, 
nothing will be regarded but the interest of the nation, On 
the altar of my country’s good, I, for one, am willing to sacri- 
fice all personal resentments, all private wrongs; and I flatter 
myself that Iam not the only man in this house, who is capa- 
ble of making such a sacrifice. 

2. We have, sir, an extensive country, without population. 
What can be a more obvious policy, than that this country 
ought to be peopled? People form the strength and consti-_ 
tute the wealth of a nation. I want to see our vast forests 
filled up by some process a little more speedy than the ordinary 
course of nature. I wish to see these states rapidly ascend- 
ing to that rank which their natural advantages authorize them 
to hold among the nations of the earth. 

3. Cast your eyes, sir, over this extensive country. Ob- 
serve the salubrity of your climate; the variety and fertility 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 445 


of your soil; and see that soil intersected, in every quarter, 
by bold navigable streams, flowing to the east and to the 
west, as if the finger of Heaven were marking out the course 
of your settlements, inviting you to enterprise, and pointing 
the way to wealth. 

4, Sir, you are destined, at some period or other, to become 
a great agricultural and commercial people ; the only question 
is, whether you choose to reach this point by slow gradations, 
and at some distant period, lingering on through a long and 
sickly minority, subjected meanwhile to the machinations, in- 
sults, and oppressions of enemies foreign and domestick, 
without sufficient strength to resist and chastise them; or 
whether you choose rather to rush at once, as it were, to the 
full enjoyment of those high destinies, and be able to cope, 
single-handed, with the proudest oppressor of the world. 

5. If you prefer the latter course, as I trust you do, en- 
courage emigration, encourage the husbandmen, the mechan- 
icks, the merchants of the old world to come and settle in the 
land of promise. Make it the home of the skilful, the indus- 
trious, the fortunate and the happy, as well as the asylum of 
the distressed. 

6. Fill up the measure of your population as speedily as 
you can, by the means which Heaven hath placed in your pow- 
er; andI venture to prophesy, there are those now living, who 
will see this favoured land among the most powerful on earth ; 
able, sir, to take care of herself, without resorting to that policy 
which is always so dangerous, though sometimes unavoidable, 
of calling in foreign aid. 

7. Yes, sir, they will see her great in arts and in arms, her 
golden harvests waving over fields of immeasurable extent, 
her commerce penetrating the most distant seas, and her can- 
non silencing the vain boast of those who now proudly affect 
to rule the waves. ; 


446 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CCXIII. 


Extract from Mr. Van Buren’s Speech in the Senate of the 
United States, on the Resolutson, “ That rt is not expedient, 
at this time, for the United States to send any Ministers to 
the Congress of American Nations, assembled at Panama.” 


1. Iv will be seen, therefore, that the question is not whether 
measures shall be taken to avail ourselves of all attainable 
advantages from the assembly of the Spanish American States, 
but whether they shall be of the character, and in the form 
proposed. That form is, to send a representation, on the part 
of the United States,to the Congress of Panama, according 
to the invitation given to our government, and its conditional 
acceptance. 

2. I cannot give my advice and consent to this measure ; 
and, in assigning the reasons for my dissent, I hope to be ex- 
cused for omitting to notice some of the topicks so largely 
dwelt on, in former debates, on the subject of Spanish Ameri- 
can affairs: such as the geographical description and great 
extent of these States, the character of their inhabitants, moral, 
physical, and intellectual, the injustice of their first enslave- 
ment, the odious tyranny practised upon them for a succession 
of ages, and the cruelties inflicted by their unnatural mother 
during the war of independence. 

3. Subjects which, although they may, at times, have pro- 
duced some of the finest effusions of genuine patriotism, have 
also not unfrequently been the theme of wild and enthusiastick, 
not to say frothy and unprofitablé declamation. We have 
had enough of such essays. 

4. Iwill not say that they have become stale, because I 
would not so speak of any honest efforts in the cause of pub- 
lick liberty. For the present, at least, they would be misdi- 
rected. The condition of things is changed. Affairs have 
advanced. The colonies, whose distressed condition has oe- 


. NORTH AMERICAN READER. 447 


casioned these strong appeals to our sympathies, are now of 
right, and in fact, free and sovereign States. 

5. Their independence has been deliberately recognised by 
us and other powers, in the face of the world; and, though not 
yet acknowledged by Spain (or likely soon to be), is held by 
as good a ture, and stands, I hope, upon as firm a basis as 
ourown. ‘They have severed the tie which bound them to the 
-mother country; and, unlike ourselves, have achieved their 
“liberation by their own unaided efforts. As they have thus 
won an honourable station among independent States, it be- 
comes our imperative duty to treat with them as such. 

6. In our intercourse with them, as with all, it should be our 
first and highest concern to guard, with anxious solicitude, the 
peace and happiness of our own country; and, in the fulfil- 
ment of this duty, to reject every measure, however dazzling, 
which can have a tendency to put these great interests at haz- 
ard. Whether the measure now proposed will endanger those 
interests, or whether there is not reasonable ground to appre- 
hend it, is the question. To this will my observatigns be di- 
rected, alike regardless of all extraneous excitement, and in- 
different to the unmerited suspicion of being lukewarm in the 
cause of South American liberty. 


LESSON CCXIV. 


The Life of Wyttenbach.—Prorrssor Nott.—Southern 


Review. 


1. Tue life of Wyttenbach was one of those rare and 
happy exceptions to the usual lot of humanity, on which the 
mind loves to dwell. At an age when the visions of hope are 
too frequently dispelled by gloomy realities, he was blessed 
with the full accomplishment of schemes, projected by the 
fond enterprise, and adorned with all the brilliant colouring of 
youthful enthusiasm. 


448 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


2. He early gained the friendship and esteem of those who, 
in his eyes, had been favoured by nature with every gift that 
can confer dignity and importance upon man; and in his on- 
ward career, successively scaled all the heights of intellectual 
ambition to which his aspirations had ever soared. His life, 
it is true, was one of labour; but his labours\d pleasures 
were the same. He was toiling up an eminence where, at 
each successive step, the difficulty of the ascent was repaid by 
a landscape constantly spreading out before him in extent, and 
softening in beauty. 

3. Even the evils of old age were unfelt, or were attended 
by comforts that smoothed their asperities. He saw his merit 
universally appreciated and honoured; he had many faithful 
friends endeared to him by similarity of tastes and pursuits, 
and a learned wife to heighten, by her sympathy and co-op- 
eration, the sweets of literature, without which he scarcely 
considered life as vital. Especially was he one of those happy 
characters who fully knew the value of the blessings which 
Providence has placed before them. ‘The pleasures which 
were dearest to his youthful fancy lost none of their attrac- 
tions with time. 

4. No tantlings of ambition, no illusory hopes of higher 
happiness ever tempted him to cast a longing eye on enjoy- 
ments, acquisitions, or honours, beyond the tranquil shades of 
his academick bowers. He had pursued the career which 
was most delightful; he had acquired the fame which was 
most enviable; he had attained to the honours which were 
most elevated, in his estimation. Thus blessed with what- 
ever to him was desirable, his days flowed on with content, 
and he departed from life like a guest well pleased with the 
entertainment. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 449 


LESSON CCXV. 
On the Declaration of Independence.—LEGaRE. 


1. Great occasions, while they excite and exalt genius, | 
produce, as they require, a more severe taste. It is a remark 
of M. Auger, the French translatog, of Demosthenes, that 
many of the political harangues dWivered in the States- 
General, convened during the: reign of Charles VIII. are, in 
every point of view, admirable, while the nation had as yet no 
sure and disciplined taste for true eloquence, and its forensick 
oratory, especially, was overrun with all manners of abomina- 
tions. 

2. He accounts for this difference by the important interests 
which were involved in the discussions of the legislative assem- 
bly, while the advocates, comparatively unconcerned in the - 
subjects of their pleadings, felt at liberty to indulge their 
genius in the extravagances and conceits so much in vogue 
at that time. It is surprising to us, that in his parallel of 
Cicero and Demosthenes, he did not think of applying this 
just observation. 

3. Our own Declaration of Independence has always 
struck me as another remarkable example of the same thing. 
What is the merit of that immortal paper? The same which 
characterizes all the works of true genius, especially where 
it has produced them on great occasions, a severe and sublime 
simplicity. Any attempt at eloquence, any ornament or pret- 
tiness, would not only have been out of place, but altogether 
contemptible and revolting. 

4, Accordingly, it is a curious fact, that the very few pas- 
sages in the original draught which did savour a little of fine 
writing, and which the late Mr. Adams thought the best 
part of the composition, were struck out of it by Congress or 
the-committee. Those grave statesmen thought the subject 
quite too serious for rhetorick, the bare recital of facts they 
wisely considered as the highest and the only eloquence which 
was consistent with the character of the occasion, an occasion — 
destined to form one of the most important eras in the history 
of nations. 


450 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


LESSON CCXVI. 


DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 


The Unanimous Declar&tion of the Congress of the Thirteen 
United States.éf America, passed July 4, 1776. 


[To Txacners.—lIt is presumed that every teacher is fully sensible 
how important a knowledge of the Declaration of Independerice, the 
Constitution, and Political Definitions, is to all the citizens of the Uni- 
ted States. 

It is, therefore, hoped and believed, that every teacher will require the 
scholars not only to read them as ordinary reading lessons, but that he 
will frequently question them, for the purpose of testing their knowl- 
edge of them, and to excite attention and inquiry. ] 


1. WuHeEn, in the course of human events, it becomes ne- 
cessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which 
have connected them with another, and to assume, among the 
powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which 
the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent 
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should 
declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

2. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are 
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any 
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is 
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute 
a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, 
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem 
most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, 
indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should 
not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accord- 
ingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more dis- 
posed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right them- 
selves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 451 


But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing in- 
variably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them 
under absolute despotism, it is their right, it 1s their duty, to 


‘throw off @ch government, and to provide new guards for 


their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of 
these colonies ; and such is now the necessity which constrains 
them to alter their former systems of government. The his- 
tory of the present king of Great Britain, is a history of re- 
peated injuries and usurpations, all having, in direct object, the 
establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To 
prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

3. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome 
and necessary for the publick good. 

4. He has forbidden his governours to pass laws of imme- 
diate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their opera- 
tion, till his assent should be obtained; and when so sus- 
pended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has 
refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large dis- 
tricts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right 
of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, 
and formidable to tyrants only. 

5. He has called together legislative bodies at places un- 
usual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their 
publick records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into 
compliance with his measures. 

6. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for 
opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of . 
the people. 

7. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, 
to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative pow- 
ers, Incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at 
large, for their exercise, the state remaining, in the mean time, 
exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and con- 
vuisions within. 

8. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these 
states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization 
of foreigners ; refusing to pass others to encouragé their mi- 
pie hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations 
of land. 


452 NORTH AMERICAN READFR. 


9. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by re- 
fusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

10. He has made judges dependant on his will alone, for 
the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of 
their salaries. 

11. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent 
hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out 
their substance. 

12. He has kept among us, in times of peace, std : 
armies, without the consent bor our legislatures. 

13, He has affected to render the military fridepenient of, 
and superiour to, the civil power. 

14. He has combined with others to subject us to a juris- 
diction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by 
our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legisla- 
tion : 

15. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

16. For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punish- 
ment, for any murders which they should commit on the in- 
habitants of these states : 

17. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: 

18. For imposing taxes on us without our consent : 

19. For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial 
by jury : 

20. For transporting us beyond seas, to be ated for pre- © 
tended offences : 

21. For abolishing the free system of English laws in a 
neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary gov- 
ernment, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at 
once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same 
absolute rule into these colonies : 

22. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most 
valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our 
governments : 

23. For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring 
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases 
whatsoever. 

24. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us 
out of his protection, and waging war against us. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 453 


25. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt 
our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

26. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign 
mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation, and 
tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and per- 
fidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally 
unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 

27. He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive 
- on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become 
the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall them- 
selves by their hands, 

28. He has excited domestick insurrections among us, and 
has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, 
the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare 
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and con- 
ditions. 

29. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned 
for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions 
have been answered only by repeated injury. 

30. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act 
which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free 
people. 

31. Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British 
brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of at- 
tempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdic- 
tion over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances 
of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to 
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured 
them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these 
usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connexions 
and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice 
of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, ac- 
quiesce in the necessitv which denounces our separation, and 
hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in 
peace, friends. 

32. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States 
of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the 
Supreme Judge of the world, for the rectitude of our inten- 
tions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people 


454 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these 
United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and inde- 


pendent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to 


the British crown, and that all political connexion between them 
and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dis- 


= 


solved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full ~ 


power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish 
commerce, and to do all other acts and things which inde- 
pendent states may of right do. And for the support of this 
declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine 
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our 
fortunes, and our sacred honours. 


JOHN HANCOCK, President. 


New Hampshire—Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Mat- 
thew Thornton. Massachusells Bay—Samuel Adams, John 
Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry. Rhode Island, 
&c.—Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery. | Connecticut— 
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver 
Wolcott. New York—William Floyd, Philip Livingston, 
Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris. JVew Jersey—Richard Stock- 
ton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra- 
ham Clark. Pennsylvania—Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, 
Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James 
Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross. Dela- 
ware—Cesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas M’Kean. 
Mavryland—Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, C. 
Carroll, of Carrollton. Virginia—George Wythe, Richard 
Henry Lee, ‘Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas 
Nelson, jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton. North 
Carolina—William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. 


South Carolina—Edward Rutledge, Thomas Hayward, jr., — 
Thomas Lynch, jr., Arthur Middleton. Georgia—Button — 


Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 455 


LESSON CCXVII. 


CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 


Preamble. 


We, the people of the United States, in order to form a 
more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestick tran- 
quillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general 
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the 
United States of America, ‘ 


ARTICLE I. 
Of the Legislative. 
SECTION 1, 


1, All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested ina 
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Sen- 
ate and House of Representatives. 


SECTION If. 


1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of 
members chosen every second year by the people of the sev- 
eral states ; and the electors in each state shall have the quali- 
fications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch 
of the state legislature. 

2. No person shall be a representative who shall not have 
attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years 
a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elect- 
ed, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen. 

3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several states which may be included within this 
union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be 
determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, 
including those bound to service for a term of years, and ex- 
cluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. 
The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after 
the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and 


1 =. 


<# 


456 ' NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as 
they shall by law direct. The number of representatives shall 
not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but’each state shall 
have at least one representative ; and until such enumeration 
shall be made, the state of New Hampshire shall be entitled 
to choose three; Massachusetts, eight; Rhode Island and 
Providence Pjantations, one ; Connecticut, five; New York, 
six; New Jersey, fuur; Pennsylvania, eight ; Delaware, one ; 
Maryland, six; Virginia, ten; North Carolina, five; South 
Caroline, five; and Georgia, three. 

4. When vacancies happen in the representation from any 
state, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of elec- 
tion to fill such Vacancies. 

5. The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker 
and other officers ; and shall have the sole power of impeach- 
ment. 


SECTION III. 


‘1. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of 
two senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, 
for six years ; and each senator shall have one vote. 

-2. Immediately after they shall be assembled, in conse- 
quence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally 
as may be into three classes. ‘The seats of the senators of 
the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second 
yeax, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, 
and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that 
one third may be chosen every second year ; and if vacancies 
happen by resignation or otherwise, during the recess of the 
legislature of any state, the executive thereof may make tem- 
porary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, 
which shall then fill such vacancies. 

3. No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained 
to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the 
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabi- 

tant of that state for which he shall be chosen. 

4. The Vice-President of the United States shall be Pres- 
ident of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be 
equally divided. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 457 


5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a 
president pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, 
or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United 
States. 

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeach- 
ments: when sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or 
affirmation. Wheu the President of the United States is tried, 
the Chief-Justice shall preside; and no person shall be con- 
victed without the concurrence of two thirds of the members 
_ present. 

7. Judgement in cases of impeachment shall not extend far-, 
ther than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold - 
and enjoy any office of honour, trust, or profit under the Uni- 
ted States ; but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable 
and subject to endictment, trial, judgement, and punishment, 
according to law. . 

SECTION IV. 


1. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for 
senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state 
by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time, 
by law, make or alter such regulations, except as to the places 
of choosing senators. 

2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, 
and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, 
unless they shall by law appoint a different day. 


SECTION V. 


1. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, 
and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each 
shall constitute a quorum to do business ; but a smaller num- 
ber may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to 
compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner 
and under such penalties as each House may provide. 

2. Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, 
punish its members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the con- 
currence of two thirds, expel a member. 

3. Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and 
from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as 
may, in their judgement, require secrecy; and the yeas and 

U 


458 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


nays of the members of either House, on any question, shall, 
at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the 
journal. 

4. Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, 
without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three 
days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses 
shall be sitting. 


SECTION VI. 


1. The senators and representatives shall receive a com- 
pensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid 
out of the treasury of the United States. They shall, in all 
cases except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be priv- 
ileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of 
their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from 
the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they 
shall not be questioned in any other place. 

2. No senator or representative shall, during the time for 
which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under 
the authority of the United States, which shall have been cre- 
ated, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased — 
during such time ; and no person holding any office under the 
United States, shall be a member of either House during his 
continuance in office. 


SECTION VII. 


1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House 
of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur 
with amendments as on other bills. 

2. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Repre- 
sentatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be 
presented to the President of the United States; if he ap- 
prove, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it, with his 
objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who 
shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed 
to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two thirds of 
that House shall] agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together 
with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall like- 
wise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that 
House, it shall become a law. But in all sech cases the 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 459 


votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays ; 
and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill 
shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. 
If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten 
days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to 
him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed 
it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, 
in which case it shall not be a law. 

3. Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concur- 
rence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be 
necessary (except on a question of adjournment), shall be pre- 
sented to the President of the United States ; and before the 
same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being dis- 
approved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Sen- 
ate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and 
limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. 


SECTION VIII. 


The Congress shall have power— 

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to 
pay the debts and provide for the common defence and gen- 
eral welfare of the United States ; but all duties, imposts, and 
excises shall be uniform throughout the United States: 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States : 

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and amIc8g 
fo several states, and with the Indian tribes: 

4. 'To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uni- 
form laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the Uni- 
ted States : 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign 
coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures : 

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the se- 
curities and current coin of the United States: 

7. To establish post-offices and post-roads : 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by. 
securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the ex- 
clusive right to their respective writings and discoveries : 

9. To constitute tribunals inferiour to the supreme court: 


U2 


460 NORTH AMERICAN RFADER. 


10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed 
on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations: 

11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and. reprisal, 
and make rules concerning captures on land and water: 

12. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of 
money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years: 

13. To provide and maintain a navy : 

14. To make rules for the government and regulation of 
the Jand and naval forces: 

15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the 
Jaws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions : 

16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the 
militia, and for governing such part of them as may be em- 
ployed in the service of the United States, reserving to the 
states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the 
authority of training the militia according to the discipline pre- 
scribed by Congress : 

17. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, 
over such district (not exceeding ten miles square), as may, by 
cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, 
become the seat of the government of the United States ; and 
to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the con- 
sent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, 
for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and 
other needful buildings :—And, 

18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper 
for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other 
powers vested by this Constitution in the government. of the 
United States, or in any department or officer thereof. 


SECTION IX. 


1. The migration or importation of such persons as any of 
the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be 
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight; but a tax or duty may be imposed on such 
importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. 
2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be 
suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the 
publick safety may require it. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 461 


3. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 

4. No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in 
proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed 
to be taken. 

5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from 
any state. 

6. No preference shall be given by any regulation of com- 
merce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of anoth- 
er: nor shall vessels bound to, or from one state, be obliged 
to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. 

7. No money shall be drawn from the treasury but i in con- 
sequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular state- 
ment and account of the receipts and expenditures of all Ee 
lick money shall be published from time to time. 

8. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United 
States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust 
under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, ac- 
cept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind 
whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. 


SECTION X. 


_ 1. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or con- 
federation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin mon- 
ey; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver 
coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, 
ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts ; 
“or grant any title of nobility. 

2. No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay 
any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may 
be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws ; and 
the nett produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any, state on 
imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the 
United States ; and all such laws shall be subject to the re- 
vision and control of the Congress. 

3. No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay 
any duty of tunnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of 
peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, 
or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually in- 
vaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 


462 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


ARTICLE II. 
Of the Executive. 
SECTION I. 


1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
United States of America. He shall hold his office during 
the term of four years, and, together with the Vice-President, 
chosen for the same term, be elected as follows : 

2. Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the legisla- 
ture thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the 
whole number of senators and representatives to which the 
state may be entitled in the Congress: but no senator or rep- 
resentative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under 
the United States, shall be appointed an elector. 


[3. The electors shall mect in their respective states, and vote by ballot 
for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same 
state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted 
for, and of the number of votes for each ; which list they shall sign and cer- 
tify, and transmit sealed to the seat of government of the United States, di- 
rected to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, 
in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the 
certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the 
greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a major- 
ity of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if there be more ni 
one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the 
House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them 
for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest 
on the list, the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But 
in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representa- 
tion from each state having one vote: A quorum for this purpose shall con- 
sist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority 
of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the 
choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of 
the electors shall be the Vice-President. But if there should remain two or 
more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the 
Vice-President. ]* 


3. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the 
electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; 
which day shall be the same throughout the United States. 

4. No person, except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of 
the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitu- 
tion, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall 
any person be eligible to that office who shall not have at- 


* This clause is annulled. See Amendments, Art. 12. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 463 


tained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years 
a resident within the United States. 

5. In case of the removal of the President from office, or 
of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers 
and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the 
Vice-President ; and the Congress may by law provide for 
the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of 
the President and Vice-President, declaring what officer shall 
then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, 
until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected. 

6. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his ser- 
vices a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor 
diminished during the period for which he shall have been 
elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other 
emolument from the United States, or any of them. 

7. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall 
take the following oath or affirmation : 

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will faithfully exe- 
cute the office of President of the United States, and will, to 
the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Con- 
stitution of the United States.” 


SECTION If. 


1. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army 
and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the 
several states when called into the actual service of the United 
States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the prin- 
cipal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any 
subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and 
he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for of- 
fences against the United States, except in cases of im- 
peachment, 

2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of 
the senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by 
and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint 
ambassadors, other publick ministers and consuls, judges of 
the supreme court, and all other officers of the United States 
whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and 


464 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by 
law vest the appointment of such inferiour officers as they think 
proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the 
heads of departments. 

3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies 
that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting 
commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session. 

SECTION III. ; 

1. He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress infor- 
mation of the state of the Union, and recommend to their 
consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and 
expedient ; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both 
Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement be- 
tween them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may 
adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he 
shall receive ambassadors and other publick ministers ; he 
shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall 
commission all the officers of the United States. 

SKU'TION IV. 

1. The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of 
the United States, shall be removed from office on impeach- 
ment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high 
crimes and misdemeanors, 

ARTICLE IL. 
Of the Judiciary. 
SECTION 1. 

1. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested 
in one supreme court, and in such inferiour courts as the Con- 
gress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The 
judges, both of the supreme and inferiour courts, shall hold 
their offices during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, 
receive for their services a compensation, which shall not 
be diminished during their continuance in office. 

SECTION II. 

1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and 
equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United 
States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their 


ee 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 465 


authority ; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other publick 
ministers, and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime 
jurisdiction ; to controversies to which the United States shall 
be a party; to controversies between two or more states ; 
between a state and citizens of another state; between citi- 
zens of different states; between citizens of the same state 
claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a 
state or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or 
subjects. 

2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other publick minis- 
ters, and consuls, and those in whicha state shall be party, the 
supreme court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other 
cases before mentioned, the supreme court shall have appellate 
jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, 
and under such regulations as the Congress shall make. 

3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, 
shall be by jury ; and such trial shall be held in the state where 
the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not 
committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or 
places as the Congress may by law have directed. 


SECTION III. 

1, Treason against the United States shall consist only in 
levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, 
giving them aid and comfort. 

2. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the 
testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on con- 
fession in open court. 

3. The Congress shall have power to declare the punish- 
ment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work cor- 
ruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the 

person attainted. 


ARTICLE IV. 


Miscellaneous. 


SECTION I. 

1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the 

publick acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other 

state. And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the 
U3 


466 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be 
proved, and the effect thereof. 


SECTION II. 


1. The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all priv- 
ileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. 

2. A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or 
other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in 
another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of 
the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to 
the state having jurisdiction of the crime. 

3. No person held to service or labour in one state, under 
the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence 
of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such ser- 
vice or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party 
to whom such service or labour may be due. 


SECTION III. 


1, New states may be admitted by the Congress into this 
union: but no new state shall be formed or erected within the 
jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by 
the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without 
the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned, as weil 
as of the Congress. 

2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make 
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other 
property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this 
Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims 
of the United States, or of any particular state. 


SECTION IV. 


1. The United States shall guaranty to every state in this 
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect 
each of them against invasion; and on application of the 
legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be 
convened), against domestick violence. 


ARTICLE V. 


Of Amendments. 


1. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses 
shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 467 


Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two 
thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for pro- 
posing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all 
intents and purposes as part of this Constitution, when ratified 
by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by 
conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode 
of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided 
that no amendment, which may be made prior to the year one 
thousand eight hundred and eight, shall in any manner affect 
the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first 
article ; and that no state, without its consent, shall be de- 
prived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 


ARTICLE VI. @ 


Miscellaneous. 


1. All debts contracted, and engagements entered into, be- 
fore the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against 
the United States under this Constitution as under the Con- 
federation. 

2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States, 
which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the Uni- 
ted States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the 
judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the 
Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwith- 
standing. : 

3. The senators and representatives before mentioned, and 
the members of the several state legislatures, and all execu- 
tive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the 
several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support 
this Constitution ; but no religious test shall ever be required 
as a qualification to any office or publick trust under the Uni- 
ted States. 


ARTICLE VIl. 
Of the Ratification. 


1. The ratification of the conventions of nine states, snail 


468 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between 
the states so ratifying the same. 


Done in convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present, the 
seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven 
hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States 
of America the twelfth. In witness whereof we have hereunto sub- 
scribed our names. 


GEO. WASHINGTON, President, 
and Deputy from Virginia. 
New Hampshire—John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman. Mas- 
sachusetts—Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King. Connecticut— 
William 8. Johnson, Roger Sherman. Vew York—Alexan- 
der Hamilton. New Jersey—William Livingston, David 
Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton. Pennsylvania 
— Benjamin Frankdin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George 
Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Jared Ingersol, James Wilson, 
Gouverneur Morris. Delaware—George Read, Gunning Bed- 
ford, jun., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom. 
Maryland—James M‘Henry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, 
Daniel Carroll. Virginia—John Blair, James Madison, jun. 
North Carolina—William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, 
Hugh Williamson. South Carolina—John Rutledge, Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler. 
Georgia—Wiiliam Few, Abraham Baldwin. 
Attest : 
Wituiam Jackson, Secretary. 


[Congress at their first session under the Constitution, held in 
the city of New York, in 1789, proposed to the legislatures 
of the several States twelve amendments, ten of which only 
were adopted. They are the first ten of the following 
amendments; and they were ratified by three fourths, the 
constitutional number, of the States, on the 15th of Decem- 
ber, 1791. The 11th amendment was proposed at the first 
session of the third Congress, and was declared in a mes- 
sage from the President of the United States to both Houses 
of Congress, dated the 8th of January, 1798, to have been 
adopted by the constitutional number of States. The 12th 
amendment, which was proposed at the first session of the 
eighth Congress, was adopted by the constitutional number 
of States in the year 1804, according to a publick notice by 
the Secretary of State, dated the 25th of September, 1804. ] 


NORTH AMERICAN READER, 469 


AMENDMENTS 
To the Constitution of the United States, ratified according to 
the Provisions of the Fifth Article of the foregoing Con- 
stitution. 

ArticLe I. Congress shall make no law respecting an 
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ; 
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to pett 
tion the government for a redress of grievances. 

Art. II. A well regulated militia being necessary to the se- 
curity of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear 
arms shall not be infringed. 

Art. III. No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered 
in any house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of 
war but in a manner to be prescribed by law. 

Art. IV. The right of the people to be secure in their per- 
sons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches 
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue 
but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and 
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the per- 
sons or things to be seized. 

Art. V. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or 
otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or endict- 
ment of a grandjury, except in cases arising in the land or na- 
val forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of 
war or publick danger; nor shall any person be subject, for 
the same offence, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; 
nor shall be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness 
against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law; nor shall private property be 
taken for publick use without just compensation. 

Art. VI. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall en- 
joy the right to a speedy and publick trial, by an impartial jury 
of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been com- 
mitted, which district shall have been previously ascertained 
by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the 
accusation ; to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; 
to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his fa- 
vour, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defence. 


470 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


Art. VII. In suits.at common law, where the value in con- 
troversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury 
shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be other- 
wise re-examined in any court of the United States, than ac- 
cording to the rules of the common law. 

Art. VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor exces- 
sive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

Art. IX. The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain 
rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others re- 
tained by the people. . 

Art. X. The powers not delegated to the United States by 
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved 
to the States respectively, or to the people. 

Art. XI. The judicial power of the United States shall not 
be construed to extend to any suit, in law or equity, commenced 
or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of 
another state, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state. 

Art. XII. The electors shall meet in their respective States, 
and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of 
whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state 
with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person 
voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted 
for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all 
persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as 
Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which 
lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat 
of the government of the United States, directed to the Pres- 
ident of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in 
the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, 
open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted ; 
the person having the greatest number of votes for President, 
shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the 
whole number of electors appointed ; and if no person have 
such majority, then from the persons having the highest num- 
bers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as 
President, the House of Representatives shall choose imme- 
diately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the Presi- 
dent, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation 
from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 47] 


shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the 
States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a 
choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose 
a President, whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon 
them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the 
Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the 
death or other constitutional disability of the President. The 
person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, 
shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of 
the whole number of electors appointed, and if no person 
have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list 
the Senate shall choose the Vice-President ; a quorum for the 
purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number of 
senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be neces- 
sary toa choice.’ But no person constitutionally ineligible to 
the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. 


[Note 1. Another amendment was proposed as article XIII. at the second 
session of the eleventh Congress, but not having been ratified by a sufficient 
number of the states, has not become valid, as a part of the Constitution 
of the United States. It is erroneously given as a part of the Constitution, 
in page 74, vol. i., Laws of the United States, published by Bioren & Duane, 
in 1815. 

(N Seid The Constitution, as above printed, has been carefully compared 
with the copy in the Laws of the United States, published by authority, and 
also with one in the National Calendar for the year 1826, which was copied 
from the roll in the Department of State.] 

{Note 3. The ratification of the Constitution by the State of New Hamp- 
shire, being the 9th imforder, was laid before Congress on the 2d of July, 
1788, and, with the ratifications of the other states, was referred to a com- 
mittee, to report an act for carrying the new system into operation. An act 
for this purpose was reported on the 14th of the same month, and was passed 
on the 13th of the September following.]—American Almanack, 1831. 


LESSON CCXVIII. 
Political Definitions. 


From Epwarp D. MANsFIELp’s Political Grammar of the United States, 
published by Harper & Brothers. This Grammar is invaluable, and 
should be in the hands of every person in this country. 


1. SoveREIGNTY, is the highest power! Thus, for a state, 
or nation, to be sovereign, it must govern itself, without any 
dependance upon another power. It must have no superiours 


472 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


But when a community, city, or state makes part of another 
community or state, and is represented with foreign powers by 
that community or state of which it is a part, then it is not 
sovereign. 

2. GovERNMENT, is the whole body of constituted author- 
ity. Thus, from the very origin of society, one portion of the 
people have exercised authority over the rest. The authority 
thus exercised is called the government, and it derives its just 
powers from the consent of the governed. 

3. Law, is a rule of action. In this general sense, it sig- 
nifies the rules of all action, and constitutes alike the rules by 
which the heavenly bodies move, nations are governed, and the 
plants grow. Law, in a political sense, however, signifies a 
rule of humanaction. In a particular state, “it is a rule pre- 
scribed by the supreme power in the state, prea what 
is right, and forbidding what is wrong.” 

4. CoNSTITUTION, is the constituted form of boveribnent: 
It is the fundamental law; the regulation which determines 
the manner in which the authority vested in government is to 
be executed. It is delineated by the hand of the people. 

5. A Desporism, is that form of government ‘in which a 
single individual, without any law, governs according to his own 
will and caprice.” An example of this kind of government 
may be found in Turkey, where the sultan exercises all the 
powers of sovereignty, with respect to the general administra- 
tion of publick affairs; but, even there, he is limited by cer- 
tain customs and rules, as it respects private justice. 

6. A Monarcny, is that form of government in which a 
single individual governs, but according to established laws. 
The governments of Austria, Prussia, France, and England 
are examples of this form of government. The limitations 
placed upon the monarch are, however, very different in de- 
gree: thus, the power of the Prussian monarch is very great, 
while that of the King of England is so small as scarcely to be 
felt. ‘The latter acts through his ministers, who are held re- 
sponsible to the representatives of the people, and can main- 
tain their power only so long as they can satisfy publick opinion. 

7. A RepvuBtick, is that form of government in which the 
whole people, or only a part of the people, hold sovereign 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 473 


power. The peopie of Athens were formerly an example of 
the first kindof republick, and governed themselves by pri- 
mary assemblies of the people, a mode which could only be 
adopted where the people were chiefly citizens, and inhabitants 
of’ one capital city. In modern times the United States are 
an example of the same kind of republick, with this difference, 
that the people do not govern themselves by their assemblies, 
but by delegates, or through the principle of representation. 
An example of the second kind of republicks may be found 
in Venice, Genoa, and the Dutch States, in all of which a 
part of the people, either absolutely or limitedly, exercised the 
authority. The difference between these kinds of republicks 
will be understood from the following definitions. 

8. A Democracy, is when the sovereign power is in the 
hands of the whole people. The term Democracy is derived 
directly from the Greek word Demos, signifying the people. 

9. An ARIsTocracy, is when the sovereign power is in the 
hands only of a part of the people. This word is likewise 
of Greek derivation. It is compounded of the adjective 
Aristos, signifying best or wisest, and Kratos, signifying power 
or strength ; the whole word signifies that form of government 
in which a few of the wisest and best govern. Both Democ- 
racies and Aristocracies are Republicks. | 

10. A Parry, is any number of persons confederated, by 
a similarity of objects and opinions in opposition to others. 
An illustration of this may be found anywhere. In England, 
the whigs and tories are two great parties which have long di- 
vided the nation. In France, during the revolution, the jaco- 
bins and royalists were violently opposed. On the continent 
of Europe generally, there are the parties of the liberals and 
absolutists. Inthe United States, the federal and democratick 
parties divided the country till the termination of the last war. 

11. A Faction, is any number of persons, whether major- 
ity or minority, confederated by some common motive, in op- 
position to the rights of other persons, or to the interests of 
community. The difference between party and faction then 
is, that the former is a difference of principle, and is founded 
on a general or publick object; the latter may have any motive, 
however personal or selfish, and be directed towards any end, 


474 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


however little connected with the publick welfare. Thus, two 
divisions of the people differing as to how the government 
shall be administered, are parties; but a section whose object 
is to keep one portion of the people from the enjoyment of 
power, or to agvrandize an individual, or to divide among them- 
selves all the offices of state, is a faction. 

12. Leeistarors, is the law-making power. Thus, in a 
republick, it is that branch of the government in which the peo- 
ple have vested the power to make laws. 

13. Conaress, is a meeting for the settlement of national 
affairs, whether relating to one or more nations. In the Uni- 
ted States, the national legislature is called the congress; in 
Europe, a conference of different powers by their ministers, is 
called a congress ; as the meeting of ambassadors at Laybach 
was called the congress of Laybach. 

14. Leetstative, that which relates to law-making. 

15. Execcrive, that which relates to the execution of the 
faws. ‘Thus, the chief officer of the government, whether he 
be called king, president, or governour, is denominated the ex 
ecutive; for on him, in most cases, the constitution devolves 
the duty of executing the laws. 

16. Jupicrax, that which relates to the administration of 
justice. Thus, judicial duties are those which devolve upon 
the judges, who have to decide upon what is law, and to adju- 
dicate between private rights. 

17. Srarute Law, is the express written will of the legis- 
lature, rendered authentick by prescribed forms. Thus, the 
statutes of Ohio are the laws enacted by the legislature of 
Ohio. It follows, from this definition in connexion with those 
of constitution and legislature, that statutes can be binding 
only when, Ist, they are executed according to the prescribed 
forms ; and, 2dly, when they are consistent with the constitu- 
tion; for, the constitution being the fundamental law, created 
by the people themselves, all other laws ‘are inferiour to it. 

18. Common Law, is that body of principles, usages, and 
rules of action which do not rest for their authority upon the 
positive will of the legislature. In other words, it consists 
of those customs and rules to which time and usage have given 
the sanction of law. Of such, it is plain, must be the great 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 475 


body of the laws of every people ; for the rules of business 
and the usages of society are so variable and complicated, as 
to be incapable of being made permanently the subject of stat- 
ute law. The will of the legislature being, however, under 
the limitation of the constitution, that of the people, statute 
law is superiour in force to common law; and wherever they 
are inconsistent with each other, the latter is abrogated by the 
former. 

19, A Corporation, is defined to be a body politick, hav- 
ing a common seal. It is an artificial, or political person, 
maintaining a perpetual succession, by means of several indi- 
viduals, united in one body through a common seal. They 
have a legal immortality, except so far as they are limited by 
the law of their creation. ‘These were originally created for 
purposes of charity, trade, and education ; but are now used 
for all purposes in which it is wished to transmit a common 
property. Thus, all banks, turnpike companies, colleges, and 
chartered societies are examples of corporations, 

20. Cuarrer, is the act creating the corporation, or sep- 
arate government, or the privileges bestowed upon a commu- 
nity, or a society of individuals. It is derived from the Latin 
term charta, signifyig a writing. 

21. A Court, is defined to be a place wherein justice is 
judicially administered. In our country, and in the New Eng- 
land states especially, court has sometimes had another sig- 
nification, that of the legislative body ; thus, the general court 
of Massachusetts is the legislature. The former is, however, 
the correct meaning. 

22. Muwniciratr, relating to a corporation. Municipal laws 
are civil or internal, in opposition to national or external laws. 
Thus, laws relative to the descent of property are municipal 
laws; but laws relative to war, the army, and navy are exter- 
nal arid national. 

23. JurispIcTION, is extent of legal power. ‘Thus, a court 
has jurisdiction over certain things, as all sums over a certain 
amount, when its legal authority extends over them. . A govy- 
ernment has jurisdiction over a certain territory, when its power 
extends over it. 

24, IMPEACHMENT, is a publick accusation, by a body autho- 


476 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


rized to make it. Such were the charges preferred by the 
British House of Commons against Warren Hastings, Govy- 
ernour-general of India; and in this country by the House of 
Representatives, against Samuel Chase, one of the judges of 
the Supreme Court. 

25. VerpIctT, is the true saying of a jury. It is the an- 
swer which a jury makes to the court and parties, when the 
plaintiff and defendant have left the cause to their decision. 

26. Diptomacy, signifies the intercourse which is carried on 
between different nations by means of their ministers, or agents. 

27. REVOLUTION, is a radical change in the government of 
the country. It may be made in various ways; by force and 
blood, as in France, 1792 ; by the expulsion of one family and 
settlement of another, as in England, 1688, and, in France, 
1830; or by a separation of one part of a country from an- 
other, as in the United States, in 1776. Thus, also, all acts 
in opposition to the laws, and which are not legitimate under 
the constitution, are revolutionary, because their tendency is 
the overthrow of the laws. 

28. Ex post racro. An ex post facto law is a retro- 
spective criminal law. A retrospective law is one which acts 
upon things already done, and not merely upon those which 
are to be done. An ex post facto law makes something crim- 
inal which was not criminal when done. Thus, if the legisla- 
ture should pass an act, declaring that all persons who had not 
attended church last year should be imprisoned, that law would 
be unconstitutional, because ex post facto. But if the legis- 
lature should pass an act that those who had attended militia 
duty last year should be excused from paying taxes, and those 
who had not should not be so excused, such a law would be 
retrospective, but not ex post facto, because not criminal.. An 
ex post facto law makes past acts criminal, which were not so 
‘before. 

29. A Britt or ATTAINDER, is a special act of the legisla- 
ture, inflicting capital punishments upon persons supposed to 
be guilty of high offences, such as treason and felony, without 
any conviction in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. 
If it inflict a milder punishment, it is called a bill of pains and 
penalties. 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. iz 


30. Tue Batcort, signifies the ball, or ticket, by which 
persons vote at an election. To ballot signifies voting by bal- 
lot, i. e. by ball, or ticket. Formerly voting was altogether 
viva voce, that is, by the voice; the elector designating by 
name the person voted for; now, elections are generally made 
by ballot. ‘The name of the person voted for is written on a 
ticket, and deposited in a box. 

31. Quorum, is such a number of any body as is neces- 
sary to do business. Thus, when it is said there shall be 
eleven directors of any institution, and seven shall constitute 
a quorum, seven is the number necessary to do business ; and 
unless the contrary is expressed, a majority of a quorum only 
is necessary to a decision. Hence it often happens, that less 
than a majority of the whole decide important questions. 

. EnpictmentT. An endictment is a written accusation 
of one or more persons, of ‘a crime or misdemeanor, prefer- 
red to, and presented upon oath by, a grandjury. 

33. Taxes. All contributions imposed by the government 
upon individuals, for the service of the state, are called taxes, 
by whatever name known. Thus, the tithes imposed upon the 
people of England for the support of church government is a 
tax: so also imposts, duties, excises, &c. are taxes. 

34. Haseas Corpus.* ‘This is the citizen’s writ of right, 
in cases where he is aggrieved by illegal imprisonment ; and, 
for the personal liberty of individuals, the Habeas Corpus Act 
1s next in importance to the Constitution ; for, so long as this 
statute remains, no citizen can long be detitited in prison, ex- 
cept in those cases in which the law requires and justifies such 
detainer ; and, lest this act should be evaded by demanding 
unreasonable bail or sureties for the prisoner’ S appearance, it 
is declared by a subsequent act that excessive bail shall not be 
required. The Habeas Corpus Act can only be suspended 
(and that for a short and limited time) by Congress, in cases 
of extreme emergency, during which suspension, suspected 
persons may be imprisoned without assigning any reason for 
its being done. In such cases, the nation parts with a portion 
of its liberty for a time, in order, as it is presumed, to preserve 
the whole for ever. 


* The definition of Habeas Corpus was taken from the Law 
Dictionarv, contained in the Treasury of Knowledge. 


478 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


QUESTIONS 


ON THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 
UNITED STATES, AND POLITICAL DEFINITIONS. TO BE ANSWERED BY 
THE SCHOLAR. 


On the Declaration of Independence. 


When was the Declaration of Independence declared ? 

By how many States was it declared ? 

At what place ? 

Who was the President of that Convention ? 

When did the Convention meet to frame the Constitution? "Where % 
Who was the President of that Convention? 


On the Constitution. 
ARTICLE I. 


Of the Legislative. 


In what are all the Legislative powers of the United States vested by 
the Constitution ? 

Of what must the Congress consist ? 

Of what is the House of Representatives composed ? 

How often must the Representatives be chosen? 

By whom? 

What are the qualifications of the electors of Representatives 1? 

What age must a Representative be, and how long must he have been 
a citizen of the United States ? 

Must a Representative be an inhabitant of the State in which he is 
chosen ? 

How are Representatives and direct taxes apportioned ? 

How many Representatives shall each State have ? 

How many thousand of inhabitants shall each State have to entitle it 
to more than one Representative ? 

How are vacancies to be filled? 

Who shall choose the Speaker and other officers of the House of 
Representatives 4 

Which House of Congress shall have the sole power of impeachment t 

Of what is the Senate composed? How chosen, and for what length 
of time ? 

How are vacancies to be filled ? 

What age must a Senator be, and how long must he have been a citi- 
zen of the United States ? 

Must a Senator be an inhabitant of the state in which he is chosen ? 

Who is the President of the Senate? 

Has he a right to a vote! ‘ 

Who shall choose the officers of the Senate ? 

Which House of Congress shall have the sole power to try all im- 
peachments? 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 479 


Who shall preside when the President of the United States is tried ? 
How many of the members present must concur in order to convict ? 
How far shall cases of impeachment extend ? 

By whom shall the time, place, and manner of holding elections for 
Senators and Representatives be prescribed ? 

Can Congress, by law, make or alter such regulations ? 

How often shall Congress meet, and when? 

Who shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of 
the members of Congress ? 

How many members shall constitute a quorum to do business? 

Can Congress compel the attendance of its members ? 

What power has either House over its members! How many mem- 
bers must concur in such expulsion? 

_ What is the duty of each House in relation to a journal of its proceed- 
ings ? 

How many of the members present can require the yeas and nays on 
any question? 

How many days, during the session of Congress, may either House 
adjourn without the consent of the other ? 

How shall the Senators and Representatives receive a compensation for 
their services ? 

When shall members of Congress be privileged from arrest? 

Shall they be questioned for any speech or debate in either House, in 
any other place? 

May any Senator or Representative be appointed to any civil office un- 
der the authority of the United States, or, holding such office, be amem- 
ber of either House? 

In which House shall all bills for raising revenue originate ? 

_ Who must sign every bill which shall have passed both Houses of Con- 
gress before it become a law? . 

If the President do not approve the law, what must he do? 

How many members of both Houses may, after reconsideration of such 
law, pass it without the signature of the President? 

Within how many days must the President return a bill after it shall 
have been presented to him ? 

Must the President approve every order, resolution, or vote, before the 
same shall take effect ? 

What shall Congress have power to do? 

When may the writ of habeas corpus be suspended * 

May any bill of attainder, or ex post facto, be passed ? 

May any capitation or other direct tax be laid? 

May Congress lay any duty on articles exported from any State ? 

May Congress, by any regulation of commerce or revenue, give pref- 
erence to the ports of one State over those of another? 

In what way may money be drawn from the treasury ? 

May Congress grant any title of nobility ? 

May any officer of the United States accept of any present, office, or 
title from any king or prince? 

May any State lay any imposts or duties? 

May any State keep troops or ships of war in time of peace? 


480 NORTH AMERICAN READER. 


ARTICLE II. 


Of the Executive. 


In whom shall the Executive power be vested? 

How long shall the President and Vice-President hold their offices? 

How shall the President and Vice-President be elected, and by whom? 

Who may determine the time of choosing the electors? 

Who shall be eligible to the office of President or Vice-President of 
the United States? 

In case of the death, resignation, or removal of the President, who 
shall discharge the powers and duties of his office? 

What shall the President receive for his services ? 

Shall the President, before he enters on the execution of his office, 
take any oath or affirmation ? ; 

Who shall be Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United 
States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the ac- 
tual service of the United States? 

Who shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences 
against the United States ? 

Who shall have power to make treaties ? 

Who shall appoint ambassadors, publick ministers, consuls, and judges 
of the supreme court ? . 

In whom may Congress vest the power to appoint inferiour officers ? 

Who shall have power to fill all vacancies that may happen during 
the recess of the Senate ? 

In what manner shall the President give Congress information 1 

When may the President convene both or either of the Houses of 
Congress, and when adjourn them? 

Who shall receive ambassadors and other publick ministers ? 

Who shall see that the laws be faithfully executed, and commission all 
the officers of the United States? 

For what shall the President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of 
the United States be removed from office ? 


ARTICLE III. 


Of the Judiciary. 

In what shall the Judicial power of the United States be vested ? 

How long shall the judges hold their offices, and what shall they 
receive for their services? 

To what cases shall the judicial power extend ? 

How shall the trial of all crimes be, and where held ? 

In what shall treason against the United States consist, and in what 
way be convicted ? 

Who shall have power to declare the punishment of treason? 


ARTICLE IV. 


Miscellaneous. 


Who shall prescribe the manner in which the publick acts, records, 
and judicial proceedings of every State shall be proved? 


NORTH AMERICAN READER. 481 


What principles and immunities shall the citizens of each State have 
in the several States? 

What has the Constitution prescribed in relation to a person, charged 
with crime in any State, who has fled to another? 

What has the Constitution prescribed in relation to a person held to 
service or labour in one State, under the laws thereof, who has escaped 
into another? 

How and in what manner may new States be admitted by Congress 
into this Union! 

Who shall have power to dispose of and make needful rules and 
regulations respecting the territory or other property of the United 
States ! 

What form of Government shall be guarantied to each State by the 
United States ? 


ARTICLE V. 


Of Amendments. 


How, when, and in what manner shall Amendments to this Constitu- 
tion be proposed, and how ratified and made valid ? 


ARTICLE VI. 


Miscellaneous. 


What shall be the supreme law of the land ? 

In what manner shall the Senators and Representatives of the United 
States, the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all Execu- 
tive and Judicial Officers, both of the’ United States and of the several 
States, be bound to support this Constitution ? 


ARTICLE VII. 


Of the Ratification. 


The Ratification of the Conventions of how many States, was suffi- 
cient for the establishment of this Constitution ? 


AMENDMENTS. 


May Congress make any law respecting an establishment of religion ; 
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press? 

Shall the right of the people to keep and bear arms be infringed 1 

May a soldier be quartered in any house without the consent of the 
owner ? 

In what manner may the persons, houses, papers, and effects of any 
person be searched or seized ? 

In what manner shall a person be held to answer for a capital, or 
otherwise infamous crime ? 

May any person be put in jeopardy of life or limb twice for the same 
offence ? 

Shall any person be compelled to be a witness against himself * 

May private property be taken for publick use? 

In what manner shall all criminal prosecutions be conducted t 

In what cases shall the right of trial by jury be preserved 1 


<n d 


482 NORTH AMERICAN READER, 


May excessive bail be required, or excessive fines be imposed in aay 
case whatever ! 

What powers are reserved to the States respectively, or to the peopla ¢ 

To what shall the judicial power of the United States extend ? 


Of Political Definitions. 


What is Sovereignty? What is Government ? 
What is Law? What is a Constitution? 

What is a Despotism? What is a Monarchy ? 
What isa Republick? What is a Democracy ? 
What is an Aristocracy? What is a Party ? 
What is a Faction? What is a Legislature ? 
What is a Congress? What is Legislative ? 
What is Executive? What is Judicial ? 

What is Statute Law? What is Common Law! 
‘What is a Corporation? What is a Charter? 
What is a Court? What is Municipal ? 

What is Jurisdiction? What is Impeachment? 
What is a Verdict? What is Diplomacy ? 

What isa Revolution? Whatis Ex Post Facto? 
What is a bill of Attainder? What is the Ballov? 
What is Qnornm? What is Endictment! 

What are Jaxes? What is Habeas Corpus? 


Abetter 
Abscission 
Accoutre 
Achievement 
Addice 
Advisable 
Agriculturist 
Aiddecamp 
Aisle 
Alchymist 
Alchymy 
Allege 
Allspice 
Almanack 
Annatto 
Ankle 
Apostacy 
Appertenance 
Apprize 
Artisan 
Asafcetida 
Ascendency 
Atlases 
Attorneys 
Authorize 
Avoirdupois 


Baptize 
Barbecue 
Base (in musick) 
Baseviol 
Basilisk 

Basin 

Batteau 
Bawble 

Beech (a tree) 
Behoove 
Belligerant 
Benefited 
Bequeath 
Biased 

Biggin 
Bigoted 
Bihous 


APPENDIX. 


List of Words of Variable Orthography, most generally spelled in- 
correctly in writing and printing. Most of them are frequently spelled 
contrary to everv Dictionary of the English Language. 


VARIABLE ORTHOGRAPHY. 


Blanketing 
Blithesome 
Bodice 
Bombasin 
Bolt (to sift) 
Bousy 
Brasier 
Brier 
Bronze 
Browse 
Brunett 
Bucaniers 
Buffeted 
Burden 
Burgeois 
By-and-by 
Caboose 
Calamanco 
Calcareous 
Camlet 
Camphire 
Canvass (cloth) 
Caravansary 
Carbinier 
Carcass 
Carpeting 
Causeway 
Chalybeate 
Chameleon 
Chamomile 
Characterize 
Chase 
Chasteness 
Chattel 
Checker 
Chestnut 
Chevauxdefrise 
Chimneys 
Chints 
Chisel 
Choke 
Choose 
Choruses 
Chymical 
Chymist 
Chymistry 


483 


Cigar Develop 
Cimeter Dexterous 
Cipher Diaeresis 
Ciphering Diarrhoea 
Circuses Die (not Dye) 
Clevy Dier 
Clew Dike 
Clinch Dint 
Cloak Diocess 
Clothes Diphthong 
Cobbler Diphthongal 
Cockneys . Disburden 
Colick (not chol.) Discrepance 
Colander Dissension 
Combated Dissensious 
Commemoration Distil 
Connexion Dote 
Connoisseur Doted 
Conqueror Draught (10 
Copperas Draft) 
Control Drought 
Cornice Dysentery 
Corslet Dyspepsy 
Coruscation Ecstasy 
Courtesan Electrify 
Coveted Embank 
Crony Embankment 
Crystal Empale 
Cuiras Empannel 
Cumfrey Emperess 
Curvetting Empoverish 
Cutlass Enclose 
Cyst Enclosure 
Dactyle Encumber 
Dandruff Encumbrance 
Daub Endict 
Decipher Endictment 
Decrepit Endite 
Dependance Endorse 
Deposite Endorsement 
Depute Endorser 
Deputed (not Enforce 
Deputized) Enforcement 
Despatch Enlist 
Despondency _—_ Enrol 
Detecter Enrolment 


X 2 


484 


Ensure 
Ensurance 
Enterprise 
Enthrone 
Entomb 
Entreat 
Entwist 
Envelop 
Epaulet 
Equinoctial 
Ethereal 
Exhilarate 
Expense 
Fagot 
Falter 
Fartherance 
Farthest 
Fascine 
Faucet 
Felloe 


APPENDIX. 


Guaranty (v.) 
Guaranties (pres. 
tense) 
Guarantying 
Guarantied 
Guillotine 
Gulf 
Hackneyed 
Halberd 
Halibut 
Halloo 
Handfuls 
Handsel 
Harangue 
Harass 
Hazel 
Headache 
Heartache 
Height 
Heinous 


Felon (not Fellon, Hinderance 


a whitlow, 
Ferula 
Fetid 
Fidg: y 
Filleted 
Finesse 
Flagelet 
Flagon 
Flanch 
Fleam 
Flimsy 
Flume 
Fosse 
Foundry 
Fricassee 
Frouzy 
Furlough 
Fy (not Fie) 
Gayety 
Gayly 
Gelly 
Germe 
Gimlet 
Gipsy 
Glaire 
Gluy 
Gosling 
Gray 
Griffin 


Group 


Guarantee (7.) 


Holyday 
Honeyed 
Hoopingéough 
Hosier 
Hostler 
Humblebee 
Hypocrisy 
Hypotenuse 
Idiot 
Idolater 

Ill (ad. not Illy) 
Imbedded 
Imbitter 
Imbody 
Imbolden 
Imbosom 
Imbower 
Incontestable 
Incrust 
Indocile 
Indispensable 
Inflammation 
Inflection 
Infold 
Ingraft 
Ingalf 
Innuendo 
Inoculate 
Inquire . 
Inquirer 
Inquiry 


Insnare 
Instil 
Instructer 
Inthral 
Intrench 
Intrenchment 
Intrust 
Intwine 
Inwrap 
Inwreath 
Irresistible 
Jaconet 
Jail 

Jailer 

Jalap 
Japanning 
Jeopard (verb) 
Jeoparding 
Jeoparded 
Jewellery 
Jockey 
Jockeys 
Jonquille 
Journeys 
Journeyed 
Julap 
Justle 
Knob 
Lackey 
Last (not Laste) 
Launch 
Laureate 
Leger 
Leggin 
Lengthwise 
Lettuce 
License 
Licorice 
Lie (not Lye) 
Lilach 

Lily 
Limited 
Lintel 
Liquefy 
Loath 
Loathe 
Loathsome 
Lough 
Lustring 
Maccaboy 
Mackerel 


Maggoty 


Maintenance 
Maize 
Malecontent 
Mandarin 
Manceuvre 
Maritime 
Meager 
Measles 
Meliorate 
Melioration 
Merchandise 
Millennium 
Millinery 
Minstrelsey 
Minum (printing 
type and nute of 
musick) 
Misprision 
Mizzen 
Moccasin 
Molasses 
Moneyed 
Moneys 
Mongrel 
Monkeys 
Monopolize 
Mortise 
Moscheto 
Mosque 
Mould 
Nape 
Naught 
Negotiate 
Negotiation 
Niche 
Noggin 
N etek 
Numscull 
Ooze 
Opaque 
Organize 
Osier 
Ospray 
Otherwise 
Overburden 
Oxyde 
Pailfuls 
Pantomime 
Paralyze 
Paroxysm 
Parsley 
Parsnip 


Partisan 
Partycoloured 
Patronise 
Pavilion 
Pelisse 
Penniless 
Phantom 
Phrensy 
Pimenta 
Pinchbeck 
Pincers 
Platen 
Plough 
Ploughed 
Poise 
Poltron 
Pony 
Porpoise 
Portray 
Postillion 
Potato 
Pother 
Practise (verb) 
Prairie 
Preterit 
Preventive 
Probat 
Profited 
Pulleys 
Pumpion 
Punctilio 
Quadrille 
Quarantine 
Query 
Quinsy. 
Quoit 
Rackoon 
Radish 
Raillery 
Raindeer 
Rarefy 
Ratafia 
Recognise 
Recompense 
Reconnoitre 
Redoubt 
Re-enforce 
Re-enforcement 
Re-imbody 
Renard 

_ Reposite 
Respite 


APPENDIX. 
Restiff Sooth (verb) 
Restifiness Spew 
Reveille Spigot 
Revery Spinage 
Riband Spinet 
Rickety Sponge 
Rinse Spongy 
Risk Spoonfuls 
Riveted Spright 
Roquelaure Stanch 
Routine Stationary 
Saddler Steril 
Sagittarius Straight (not 
Sailor Streight) 
Salad Stupify 
Sarcenet Subpeena 
Satchel Succotash 
Satinett Suiter 
Sceptred Sulkeys (car- 
Scull riages) 
Scythe Superintendent 
Secrecy Supersede 
Seeth Surviver 
Seignior Sweetbrier 
Seine Syllabication 
Senna Sylvan 
Sentinel Sympathize 
Sergeant Synonyme 
Shanty Tatieta 
Shaltoon Tambarine 
Sneath (verb) Tansy 
Shore (not Saoar, Tarpawing 
a prop, ‘Lattier 
how Teasel 
Shyly Teint 
Shyness Tenon 
Sidewise Thickscull 
Siren Thill 
Sirloin Thowl 
Sirup Thrash 
Skate Thrasher 
Skeptical Threatening 
Skepticism Threshold 
Sleazy Thwack 
Sleek (not Slick) 'Tippler 
Sleigh Tranquillity 
Sluice Trefoil 
Slyly Trepanning 
Slyness Triphthong 
Solder Trisyllable 
Sole (not Soal) ‘Trousers 
Sons-in-law Turkeys 


485 


Tweezers 
Twiggen 
Tyrannise 
Unapprized 
Unauthorized 
Unbaptized 
Unbiased 
Unbigoted 
Unburden 
Unclinch 
Unclothe 
Undress (not Un- 
derdress) 
Uninthralied 
Unploughed 
Unpractised 
Unsheath 
Unstanched 
Unwreath 
Valise 
Valleys 
Verdigris 
Verjuice 
Vermilion 
Vice (not Vise) 
Vilify 
Villany 
Villanous 
Visiter 
Vitrity 
Vizard 
Voilevs 
v oueyea 
Wagon | 
Wagoner 
Wainscoted 
Warranty 
Weasel 
Wheewrigus 
Whiffletree 
Whimsey 
Whippoorwill 
Whiskey 
Whaortleberry 
Windlass 
Wizard 
Wo 
Wondrous 
Woodchuck 
Woollen 
Wreath (verb) 
Yest 


486 


CONCISE PRINCIPLES 
OF 


PRONUNCIATION. 


Tue First Principles or Elements of Pronunciation are Letters. The 
Letters of the English Language are, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, J, , 1, m, 
N, Oy DP, J, 1, $, ty Uy V, W, TZ, Y, Z. 

To these may be added certain combinations of letters sometimes 
used in printing ; as ff, fi, fl, fi, ffl. 

Definition of Vowels and Consonants. 


Vowels are generally reckoned to be five in number; namely, a, e, 2, 
0, u; Waisa vowel when it is preceded by a, e, or 0 in the same sylla- 
ble; Y is a vowel when it is in the middle or at the end of a syllable, 
and sometimes at the beginning of a syllable, as in parox-ysm. W isa 
consonant at the beginning of a word or syllable, or when it is preceded 
by d,s, t, or th, asin well, dwell, swing, &c. Y is always a consonant at 
the beginning of a word. 

The definition of a vowel, as little liable to exception as any, seems 
to be the following: A vowel is a simple sound formed by a continued 
effusion of the breath, and a certain conformation of the mouth, without 
any alteration in the position, or any motion of the organs of speech, 
from the moment the vocal sound commences till it ends. 

A consonant may be defined to be, an interruption of the effusion of 
vocal sound, arising from the application of the organs of speech to each 
other. 

Classification of Vowels and Consonants. 


Vowels and consonants being thus defined, it will be necessary, in the 
next place, to arrange them into such classes as their similitudes and 
specifick differences seem to require. 

Letters, therefore, are naturally divisible into vowels and consonants. 

The vowels are, a, €, 7, 0, u, and w and y when ending a syllable. 

The consonants are, J, c,d, f, g,h, 7, k,l, m,n, p,q, 7, 8,4, v, Z, 2, and 
w when beginning a syllable, and y generally. 

There are two kinds of diphthongs, proper and improper. 

A proper diphthong is that in which both the vowels are sounded, as oi 
in toil. 

An wmproper diphthong is that in which but one of the vowels is 
sounded, as ai in jail. 

Consonants enumerated and distinguished into Classes. 

The consonants are divisible into mutes, semivowels, and liquids. 

The mutes are such as emit no sound without a vowel, as 3, p, t, d, k, 
and ¢ and g hard. 

The semivowels are such as emit a sound without the concurrence of 
a vowel, as f, v, 8, 2, 2, g soft or 7. 

The liquids are such as flow into, or unite easily with the mutes, as J, 
m,n, 7. 


APPENDIX. 487 


But, besides these, there is another classification of the consonants, 
of great importance to a just idea of the nature of the letters, and that 
is, into such as are sharp or flat, and simple or aspirated. 

The sharp consonants are, p, f, t, s, k, ¢ hard. 

The flat consonants are, 4, v, d, z, g hard. 

The simple consonants are those which have always the sound of one 
letter unmixed with others, as 8, p, f, v, k, g hard, and g soft or 7. 

The mixed or aspirated consonants are those which have sometimes a 
hiss or aspiration joined with them, which mingles with the letter, and’ 
alters its sound, as ¢ in motion, d in soldier, s in mission, and z in azure. 

There is another distinction of consonants, arising either from the 
seat of their formation, or from those organs which are chiefly employed 
in forming them. The best distinction of this kind seems to be that 
which divides them into labials, dentals, gutturals, and nasals. 

The labials are, 4, p, f, v. The dentals are, ¢, d, s, z, and soft g or 7. 
The gutturals are, k, g,c hard, and g hard. The nasals are, m, 2, 
and ng. 

Vowels and consonants being thus defined and arranged, we are the 
better enabled to enter upon an inquiry into their different powers, as 
they are differently combined with each other. 


Of the Influence of Accent on the sounds of the Letters. 


It may be first observed, that the exertion of the organs of speech, 
necessary to produce the accent or stress, has an obvious tendency to 
preserve the letters in their pure and uniform sound, while the relaxa- 
tion or feebleness which succeeds the accent, as naturally suffers the let- 
ters to slide into a somewhat different sound, a little easier to the organs of 
pronunciation. Thus, the first @ in cabbage is pronounced distinctly with 
the true sound of that letter, while the secund a goes into the obscure 
sound of z short, the most slender of all sounds; so that cabbage and 
village have the a in the last syllable scarcely distinguishable from the e 
and 2 in the last syllables of college and vestige. 

In the same manner the a, e,2 0, and y, coming before 7 in a final un- 
accented syllable, go into an obscure sound, so nearly approaching to the 
short w, that if the accent were carefully kept upon the first syllables of 
har, ler, elixir, mayor, martyr, &c. these words, without any percepti- 
ble change in the sound of their last syllables, might all be written and 
pronounced lieur, eur, elixur, mayur, martur, &c. 

The consonants also are no less altered in their sound by the position 
of the accent than the vowels. The & and s in the composition of z, 
when the accent is on them, in exercise, execute, &c. preserve their 
strong pure sound; but when the accent is on the second syllable, in 
exact, exonerate, &c. these letters slide into the duller and weaker sounds 
of g and z, which are easier to the organs of pronunciation. Hence 
not only the soft ¢ and the s go into sh, but even the ¢, before a diph- 
thong, slides mto the same letters, when the stress is on the preceding 
syllable. Thus, in society and satiety, the ¢ and / preserve their pure 
sound, because the syllables cz and ¢z have the accent on them ; but in 
social and satiate these syllables come after the stress, and from the fee- 
bleness of their situation naturally fall into the shorter and easier sound, 
as if written soshal and sasheate. 


488 APPENDIX. 


OF THE VOWELS. 
Of the Quantity and Quality of the Vowels. 


The first distinction of sound that seems to obtrude itself upon us 
when we utter the vowels, is a long and a short sound, according to the 
greater or less duration of time taken up in pronouncing them. ‘This 
distinction is so obvious as to have been adopted in all languages, and is 
that to which we annex clearer ideas than to any other; and though the 
short sounds of some vowels have not in our language been classed, with 
sufficient accuracy, with their parent long ones, yet this has bred but lit- 
tle confusion, as vowels long and short are always sufficiently distin- 
guishable ; and the nice appropriation of short sounds to their specifick 
long ones is not necessary to vur conveying what sound we mean, when 
the letter to which we apply these sounds is known, and its power 
agreed upon. 


A.—A has a long sound, as in lame ; the flat, Italian sound, as in far ; 
the broad, German sound, as in full; the short sound of the Italian a, 
as in fat; the short sound of broad a, as in wasp. 

Irregular and unaccented sounds. 

It is pronounced like e short in any and many ; like i short in the un- 
accented termination age, generally ; and sometimes like u short in the 
‘unaccented termination ar. 


E.—E has a long sound, as in mete; a short sound, as in met. 
Trregular and unaccented sounds. 

It is pronounced like wu short in her and hers, and in the unaccented 
termination er ; like a long in ere, there, tete, and where ; like 7 short in 
England, pretty, and yes, and in the unaccented terminations es, et, and 
en, generally, as faces, velvet, linen, &c. 


I.—J has a long sound, as in pine; a short sound, as in pin. 
Irregular and unaccented sounds. 

It is pronounced like wu short in many words when followed by 7, as in 
bird, third, &c. ; like e short also in many words when followed by r, as 
in birth, virtue, &c. ; like e long in many words, as in profile ; like long 
weak e, generally, when it ends an unaccented syllable, as in di-rect. 


O.=—O has a long sound, as in done ; a long slender close sound, as in 
move ; a long broad sound, as in mor; a short broad sound, as in not ; 
the short sound of the slender 0, as in wolf. 

Irregular and unaccented sounds. 

It is pronounced like w short, as in come, son, &c. and generally in 

the numerous terminations ock, od, ol, om, on, op, or, ot, and some, &c. 


U.—U has a long sound, as in tune; a short sound, as in tub; a mid- 
dle or obtuse sound, or the short sound of long slender 0, as in full, 
pull, &c.; the sound of long slender o when preceded by r, as in crude, 
rude, &c. . 

Irregular and unaccented sounds. 

It is pronounced like e short in bury, burial, &c. ; like i short in busy, 

business, &c. 


W.—W when a vowel has the same sound that w would have in the 
same situation, as in now, pronounced nou. 


APPENDIX. 491 


phen, it is pronounced like v. In diphthong and triphthong the first h is 
silent ; the p and A are both silent in phthisick and phthisical. 


Q.—Q has the sound of &, and is always followed by u, as in queen. 


R.—R has a rough sound when it begins a word or an accented sylla- 
ble, as in riot, direct, and a smooth sound in all other cases, as in Jard, 
carry. It is never silent, but its sound is sometimes transposed, as in 
the unaccented terminetion re, in fibre, theatre, &c. where the r is 
sounded after the e; its sound is also transposed in apron, iron, saffron. 


S.—S has its sharp hissing dental sound at the beginning of words, 
and when it follows the sharp consonants, f, k, p, t, as in soon, scoffs, 
blocks, lips, fits, strifes, flakes, &c.; a flat sound like z in many words, 
as in has, was, &c. or when it follows the flat consonants or liquids, as 
in clubs, lads, bags, saves, calls, rims, means, &c., also when it formsan 
additional syllable with e before it, in the plurals of nouns, and the third 
person singular of verbs, even though the singulars and first persons end 
in sharp hissing sounds, as in classes, riches, cages, boxes, &c.; the 
sound of sh when preceded by the accent and another s or a liquid, and 
followed by 1a, ze, zo, or long U, as in cassia, transient, expulsion, version, cen= 
sure, pressure, &c., and in sure, sugar, and their compounds ; ; the sound 
of zh when preceded by the accent anda vowel, and followed by 2a, ze, 
to, or long u, as in ambrosial, Asia, cnthuissasmpbrasier, fusion, usual, &c. 
S in the inseparable preposition dzs, when either the primary or second- 
ary accent is on it, is always pronounced sharp and hissing ; the word 
dismal, which seems to be an exception, is not so in reality ; for, in this 
word, dis is not a preposition: thus dissolute, dissonant, &c., with the 
primary accent on das; and disability, disagree, &c. with the secondary 
accent on the same letters, have the s sharp and hissing ; but when the 
accent is on the second syllable, the s is either sharp or flat, as it is fol- 
lowed either by a vowel, or a sharp or flat consonant: thus disable, disaster, 
disease, disinterested, disown, disorder, have all of them the s in dis flat 
like z, because the accent is not on it, and a vowel begins the next syl- 
lable ; but discredit, disfavour, diskindness, dispense, distaste, have the 
s sharp and hissing, because a sharp consonant begins the succeeding 
accented syllable; and disband, disdain, disgrace, disjoin, dislike, dis- 
miss, disrobe, disvalue, have the s flat like z, because they are succeeded 
by a flat consonant or liquid in the same situation, It is silent in azs/e, 
corps, demesne, isle, island, puisne, viscount. } 


SC.—Sc has the sound of s before e, 7, andy; the sound of sk before 
a, 0, u, andr; the sound of sk when followed by ze or zo and the accent 
precedes, as in conscience, conscious. 

T.—T has its pure dental sound generally, as in tame; the sound of 
sh when followed by 7a, ie, or 10, and is preceded by the accent, either 
primary or secondary, as in nuptial, patient, faction, negotiation, &c. ; 
the sound of tsh when followed by long u preceded by the accent, as in 
nature, pronounced na-tshure, and when it is followed by za or 1, pre- 
ceded by the accent and sor x, as in fustian, miztion. It is silent when 
preceded by s and followed by le or en, as in bustle, chasten, pronounced 
bus-sl, chase-sn, &c., except in pestle, where it is sounded. It is silent 
in bankruptcy, billetdous, christmas, currant, eclat, gout, (desire, taste,) 
hautboy, mortgage, and in the first syllable of chestnut. 


492 APPENDIX. 


TH.—Th has a sharp dental sound, as in think; a flat dental sound, 
as in them. The h is silent in asthma, isthmus, phthisick, phthisical, 
Thames, Thomas, thyme. 


V.—V always has its pure labial sound, which is flat f. It is silent in 
sevennight. 


W -consonant.—W when a consonant has a sound nearly like 00 ; w 
before A is pronounced as if it were written after it, as in whale, pro~ 
nounced hwale. It is always silent before r, as in wrap, and in whole, 
soho, whom, whose, whoop, sword, answer, toward, two. 


X.—X has a sharp sound like ks when it ends a syllable with the ae- 
cent on it, either primary or secondary, as in exercise, exhibition, or when 
the accent is on the next syllable if it begin with a consonant, as in ez- 
treme; a flat sound like gz when followed by an accented syllable be- 
ginning with a vowel, or with h, as in exert, exhale, &c., except in com- 
pound words, in which the primitive ends in 2, as relaxation, taxation, 
vexation, &c., to which we may add the simples in our language, dozology 
and proximity ; the sound of z at the beginning of words, as in Xeno- 
phon, Xerxes, and at the end of the words beaux and flambeauz. It is 
silent in dilletdouz. 


Y consonant.—Y when a consonant has a sound nearly like ee, as in 
youth. 


Z.—Z has generally its hissing dental sound, as in zeal ; the sound of 
zh when preceded by a vowel and the accent, and is followed by z¢ 07 
long u, as in glazier, azure. It is silent in rendezvous. 


OF ACCENT. 


Primary Accent. 


Primary Accent is a forcible stress of voice on a syllable by which we 
sound it more loudly and distinctly than we do the other syllables in the 
same word, as in’ dustry. ' 


Secondary Accent. 


Secondary Accent is a less forcible stress of voice which we frequently 
place on another syllable besides that which has the Primary Accent, in 
words of three or more syllables, in order to pronounce it more distinctly 
and forcibly than we do the unaccented syllables, that every part of the 
word may be pronounced more harmoniously, as zn’ dus ‘try, ‘ed-i-to’- 
rt ‘al, &c. 

It is of the utmost importance that the secondary accent be properly 
placed : this is fixed with as much certainty as the place of the principal 
accent itself; and a wrong position of one would as much derange the 
sound of the word, as a wrong position of the other. 

The Secondary Accent has not only the same influence as the 
Primary Accent in causing the letters c, n, s, ¢, or x to have a particu- 
lar sound, whether it precedes or falls on any one of these letters ; but 
when a word of two or more syllables, accented on the second ‘syl- 
lable, has, by taking an additional syllable, the Primary Accent thrown 
forward, thereby causing the Secondary Accent to fall on the first 
ayllable of the word, the vowel in the first syllable, though long in 


APPENDIX. 489 


Y.—Y has the sound of 2 long, as in tyrant ; the sound of 7 short, as 
m system. 

Irregular and unaccented sounds. 

It is pronounced like long weak e, generally, when it ends an unac- 
cented syllable, as in hypocrisy ; when preceded by / it should be pro- 
nounced like 7 long, as in notify, and in the words multiply, occupy, and 
prophesy. 

OF THE CONSONANTS. 


B.—B has always, when sounded, its labial sound, as in bad. It 1s 
silent when it follows m in the same syllable, as in amd, dumb, &c., except 
in accumb, rhomb, and succumb; it is also silent before ¢ in the same syl- 
lable, as in doubt, redoubt, &c. 


C.—C is sounded hard like k at the end of a syllable, and before a, o, 
w, k,l, r, and ¢, as in flac-cid, car, core, cut, publick, close, crash, tract ; 
like s before e, 2, and y, as in lace, cider, mercy; the sound of sh when 
followed by ea, za, 1e, 10, or eou, and is preceded by the accent, either 
primary or secondary, as in ocean, social, species, spacious, pronuncia- 
tion, saponaceous ; like z in discern, sacrifice, sice, suffice. It is silent 
in arbuscle, corpuscle, czar, czarina, endict, muscle, victuals. 

CH.—Ch hasthe sound of tsh in words purely English, as in chin, 
char, &c.; like sh when preceded by the liquids / or n, as in milch, bench, 
&c., and in words from the French, as in chagrin, &c. ; like k in words 
from the learned languages} as in chaos, chasm, &c. It is silent m 
drachm, schism, and yacht. 


D.—D has generally its dental sound, as in drum; it is pronounced 
like dj or 7 when followed by long w preceded by the accent, as in ed- 
ucate, verdure, ed-jucate, ver-jure : it is also sounded like j in grandeur 
and soldier. ; 

Words which end in ed, immediately preceded by d or t, have ed 
sounded distinctly, as in bounded, pointed ; and likewise, when another 
syllable is added to the word, ed should be sounded distinctly, whether 
it be preceded by d, ¢, or not, as in blessedness, designedly, deservedly, 
&c. When words which end in ed are used as nouns or adjectives, the 
termination ed should sometimes be sounded distinctly, as in the follow- 
ing: A learned man; The learned; Blessed are they ; The wicked peo- 
ple; The wretched man, &c. When the termination ed is immediately 
preceded by a vowel, or ), g,/, m, n, 17, flat th, v, z, or s, if it be sounded 
like z, the e is suppressed, and the d is added to the foregoing syllable, as 
in delayed, defied, showed, sued, rubbed, lugged, rolled, armed, rained, 
poured, breathed, saved, blazed, raised, pronounced delay'd, defi’d, show’d, 
sud, rubb’d, lugg’d, roll’d, aim’d, rain’d, pour’d, breath’d, sav’d, blaz’d, 
rais’d. When the termination ed is immediately preceded by c, f, k, p, 
$,2, ch, sh, or gu, the e is suppressed, and the d is changed into ¢, as in 
the following, faced, stuffed, cracked, tripped, passed, vexed, vouched, 
flashed, piqued, pronounced faste, stuft, crackt, tript, past, vekst, vouchi, 
flasht, peekt. 

It is silent in handkerchief, handsel, handsome, and in the first syllable 
of stadtholder and wednesday. 


F.—F has its pure labial sound, in all words, except of, in which it is 


490 APPENDIX. 


pronounced like v, as ov ; but when of is joined to the words here, there, 
where, the f retains its pure sound, as hereof, thereof, whereof. 


G.—G has its hard guttural sound before a, 0, u, J, and 7, as in gale, 
gone, gun, glide, grate, and before e and 2 in words from the Saxon, as 
In gear, get, &c. ; a soft sound like j, generally, before e, 7, and y, as in 
gelly, giant, gyre. It is silent before m or m in the same syllable, as in 
phlegm, gnat, sign, and before / in intaglo and seraglo. 

GH.—GA is pronounced like f in many words, as in laugh, cough ; it 
is pronounced like kin hough, lough, shough, The h is always silent 
at the beginning of words, as in ghost, and frequently at the end of 
words, as in burgh; g and h are both sometimes silent at the end of a 
word, as in nigh, and always in ght, as in might, except in draught, in 
which it is pronounced like f. 

H.—H is no more than breathing forcibly before the succeeding 
vowel is pronounced. At the beginning of words, it is always sounded, 
except in heir, heiress, herb, herbage, honest, honesty, honour, honourable, 
hospital, hostler, hour, humble, humour, humorous, humorsome. It is al- 
ways silent after 7, asin rhomb, and at the end of a word preceded by a 
vowel, as in af, oh. 


J.—J is pronounced like soft g, and is perfectly uniform in its sound, 
except in hallelujah, where it sounds like y. 


K.—K has always its hard guttural sound like hard. It is silent be- 
fore n in the same syllable, as in knee. 
i> It has been a custom with many to omit the k at the end of words 
when preceded by c. This has introduced a novelty into the language, 
which is that of ending a word with an unusual letter, and is not only a 
blemish in the face of it, but produces irregularity in formatives ; for 
‘frolicking, frolicked, mimicking, trafficking, &c. &c. must be written 
with the k, though to frolick, &c. without it. 


L.—L always has its pure liquid sound, as in lame. It is frequently 
silent before f, k, m, and v, as in calf, talk, calm, calve, and before d in 
could, should, and would. 


M.—M always has its pure nasal sound, as in man, except in comp- 
troller, where it sounds like n. 


N.—WN has its simple pure nasal sound generally, as in net; a com- 
pounded and mixed sound when followed by & or its representatives c 
hard, g, or x, in an accented syllable, as in bank, distinct, banquet, anz- 
zous, pronounced bangk, distingkt, bangkkwet, angkshus. It is silent at 
the end of a word when preceded by / or m, as in kiln, hymn. 


NG.—WNg has its sharp nasal sound generally, as in sing; it issounded 
like »j when followed by e at the end of a word or syllable, as in ar- 
range, arrangement ; in some words it is pronounced as if the g were 
double, as in angle,—anggl. 

P.—P always has its pure labial sound, as in pane, except in clap- 
board and cupboard, where it has the sound of b. It is silent before n, 
between m and ¢, and before s and é, at the beginning of words, as in 
pneumaticks, ptisan, tempt, psalm, and in corps, raspberry, receipt. 

PH.—Ph is sounded like f, as in prophet, except in nephew and Ste- 


APPENDIX. 495 


TO TEACHERS. 


Tur practice of teaching a child to read before he is fa- 
miliar with the orthography and pronunciation of words, is 
roductive of great injury, and tends to retard rather than 
facilitate correct reading. No child should attempt to read 
until he is able to call or pronounce, at sight, the words most 
commonly met with m composition; and, this can be more 
easily acquired by reading words in a judicious and analogi- 
cal classification in a Spelling-Book, than in detached read- 
ing lessons. 

The teacher should practise the method of requiring the 
scholars to pronounce the words in each spelling column, at 
sight, as a certain way to make good readers ; for if a child 
be required to read or pronounce words, at sight, in a read- 
ing lesson before he has learned to sound or pronounce them 
separately in a spelling column, at sight, he will hesitate ; 
and, in most cases, be confirmed in the habit of stammering. 

Reading is the enunciation or pronouncing of words b 
syllables; and, therefore, each syllable in a word should be 
as distinctly enunciated or pronounced, as if the whole les- 
sons were composed of monosyllables. Hence the impor- 
tance of enunciating words at sight in spelling columns. 
Unless children do acquire a correct and distinct enuncia- 
tion of each syllable in spelling columns, they rarely, if 
ever, acquire it in after life ; for in the practice of reading, 
the pauses, emphases, cadences, &c, occupy all, or nearly 
all, their attention. 

A thorough knowledge of spelling and pronunciation can 
be obtained only by a continual repetition of the letters and 
their sound, until the association of the letters is deeply im- 
pressed upon the mind. | 

This practice the Author pursued for years, while engaged 


; inthe business of teaching, with results entirely satisfactory ; 


and his experience imboldens him to recommend it to those 
intrusted with the instruction of youth. 


496 APPENDIX. 


QUESTIONS 
ON THE PRINCIPLES OF PRONUNCIATION, 


Of the Letters. 


How many, and what are the letters of the English Language ? 

Into what are letters naturally divisible ? 

Which are the vowels?) Which the consonants? ‘What is a vowel? 
What is a consonant? When is wa vowel? When a consonant? 
When is y a vowel? When a consonant? 

What is a proper diphthong? What is an improper diphthong ? 

Which are the mute consonants? Which the semivowels? Which 
the liquids ? 

Which are the sharp consonants? Which the flat? 


Of the Vowels. 

What sound has a in lame? in far? in fall? in fat? inwasp? inany? 
in village? inliar? 

What sound has e in mete? in met? in her? in there? in yes? 

What sound has in pine? in pin? in bird? in virtue? in profile? 
in direct? Why? 

What sound has o in tone? in move? in nor? in not? in wolf? in 
come ? 

What sound has w in tune? in tub? in full? in crude? in bury? in 

sy? 

What sound has w when a vowel? 

What sound has y in tyrant? in system? in hypocrisy? in notify? Why 


Of the Consonants. 


What sound has } always, when sounded? When is it silent? 

When is c sounded like &? When like s? Is it ever sounded like 
sh? Why? Whenlike z? Whenis it silent? 

When has ch the sound of tsh? When like sh? When like k? 
When silent ? 

What sound has d generally? Is it ever sounded like dj or 7? Why? 
When should ed be sounded distinctly? When should e¢ be suppressed 
in the pronunciation of the termination ed, and the d be added to the 
foregoing syllable? When should the e be suppressed, and the d changed - 
to ¢ in the pronunciation? When is d silent ? 

What sound has f generally! What sound in of? What sound has 
of when joined to here, there, and where ? 

When has g its hard sound? When its soft sound generally? When 
is it silent? 

What sound has gh generally?’ When like k? Whenis the h silent? 
When are both silent * 

What ish? When is it silent? 

What sound has 7? 

What sound has k always? When is it silent? 


APPENDIX. 493 


the primitive word, becomes short in the derivative, if the second 
syllable in the primitive word begin with a consonant. Thus, chro- 
nology, chron-ological; de-clare, dec-laration; de-cline, dec-iination ; 
de-fine, def-inition; de-grade, deg-radation ; de-pose, dep-osition; de- 
prive, dep-rivation; de-pute, dep-utation; de-rive, der-wation ; de-sign, 
des-ignation ; de-test, det-estation; di-vine, div-ination; e-conomy, ec- 
onomical ; e-vangelist, ev-angelical; e-volve, ev-olution; mo-lest, mol- 
estation; pla-lology phil-ological, phi-losophy, phil-osophical ; pre-pare, 
prep-aration ; pre-serve, pres-ervation ; pro-clarm, proc-lamation ; pro- 
fane, prof-anation; pro-mulgate, prom-ulgation; pro-pose, prop-ost 
tion ; pro-test, prot-estation ; pro-voke, prov-ocation; re-cant, rec-anta- 
tion; re-fute, ref-utation; re-lax, rel-axation ; re-peat, rep-etition ; re- 
pute ; rep-utation ; re-store, res-toration; re-volve, rev-olution ; se-ques- 
ter, seq-uestration ; ty-pography, typ-ographical, &c. &c. 

I have been thus particular in noting this class of words, as the 
tule which governs their pronunciation, is, by many teachers and speak- 
ers, wholly disregarded in the pronunciation of many of the words above 
alluded to, and others of the saine class. 


SYLLABICATION. 


Dividing words into syllables is a very different operation, according 
to the different ends proposed by it. ‘The object of syllabication may 
be, either to enable children to discover the sound of words with which 
they are acquainted, or to show the etymology of a word, or to exhibit 
the exact pronunciation of it. 

But an etymological division of words is a different operation ; it is the 
division of a person acquainted with the whole word, and who wishes to 
convey by this division, a knowledge of its constituent parts, as ortho- 
graphy, the-ology, &c. 

In the same manner, a person, who is pre-acquainted with the whole 
compound sound of a word, and wants to convey the sound of each part 
to one acquainted with it, must divide it into such partial sounds as, when 
put together again, will exactly form the whole, as or-thog-ra-phy, the- 
ol-o-gy, &c. ‘This is the method adopted by those who would convey 
the whole sound, by giving distinctly every part ; and, when this is the 
object of syllabication, Dr. Lowth’s rule is certainly to be followed. 
‘< The best and easiest rule for dividing the syllables in spelling, is, to di- 
vide them as they are naturally divided in a right pronunciation, without 
regard to the derivation of words, or the possible combination of conso- 
nants, at the beginning of a syllable.” 

As far as practicable, the preceding general rule has been adopted, in 
the application of the following particular 


RULES. 


I. A single consonant between two vowels must be joined to the lat- 
ter syllable, if the preceding vowel be pronounced long, as ba-sin, ci-gar. 
But if the preceding vowel be short, it must be joined to the preceding 
syllable, as fag-ot, col-ick, rib-and. Exceptions. When g is sounded like 
j, and c or ¢ like sh, at the end of a syllable in the pronunciation, they 
should be joined to the latter syllable, as ma-gick, pre-cious, addi-tion. 

II. When two consonants come between two vowels, if the preceding 


494 APPENDIX. 


vowel be long, they must be joined to the last syllable, as re-dress, re-ply. 
But if the preceding vowel be short, one must be joined to the former, 
and one to the latter syllable, as en-swre, ad-dice, gum-let. 

III. When three consonants come between two vowels, if the prece- 
ding vowel be long, they must be joined to the last syllable, as de-stroy. 
But if the preceding vowel be short, one consonant must be joined to 
the former, and the other two to the latter syllable, as in-trust, cob-bler, 
en-close. 

IV. When four consonants, which are not proper to begin a syllable, 
meet between two vowels, such of them as can begin a syllable must be 
joined to the latter, and the remainder to the former syllable, as in-thral, 
wn-structer. 

V. Two vowels, not being a diphthong, must be divided into separate 
syllables, as de-ity, ethere-al, cru-el. 

VI. Compound words must be traced into the simple words of which 
they are composed, as ink-stand, glow-worm. 

VII. Derivative, grammatical, and other particular terminations should 
generally be separated, as ¢oi/-ing, claim-ing, great-er, clean-est, preach-es, 
preach-ing, preach-ed, &c. &c. 


RULES FOR SPELLING 


The Plurals a Nouns, Participles, Present Tense and Preterit of Verbs, 
the Comparative and Superlative Degrees of Adjectives. 


I. Those words which end with y, preceded by a consonant, change 
the y to, as duty, duties ; marry, marries ; guaranty, guaranties ; hurry, 
hurried ; happy, happier, happiest. In the present or imperfect Parti- 
ciple the y is retained, that 2 may not be doubled, as marrying, hurrying. 

II. When y is preceded by a vowel, it should not be changed in the 
Plurals, Participles, Present Tense, and Preterit, as joys, moneys, attor- 
neys, valleys, delays, pays, journeying, journeyed, cloyed; except in lay, 
pay, and say, which are formed laid, paid, said. 

III. Those words which end with y, preceded by a consonant, upon 
assuming an additional syllable beginning with a consonant, generally 
change y to 12, as merry, merriment, happy, happiness. But when y is 
preceded by a vowel, it is seldom changed, as joyful, enjoyment. ae 

IV. Monosyllables, and words accented on the last syllable, which end 
with a single consonant preceded by a single vowel, double that conso- 
nant, when they take another syllable beginning with a vowel, as run, 
running, admit, admitting, refer, referred. But if a diphthong precede, 
or the accent is on the preceding syllable, the consonant remains single, 
as rain, raining, toil, toiling, differ, differing, benefit, benefited, prohabit, 
prohibited, cleaner, cleanest ; except the letter /, which is generally doub- 
led, whether the accent be on the last syllable or not, as travel, travel- 
ling, traveller ; rival, rivalling, rivalled, &c., and pin the words worship- 
per, worshipping, and worshipped 


APPENDIX. 497 


What sound has/? When is it silent? 

What sound hasm? 

What sound has generally? Has it ever a compounded and mixed 
sound like ng? Why? When is it silent? 

What sound has ng? When like xj? Is it ever pronounced as if 
- written double ? 

What sound has p, except in clapboard and cupboard? What in them? 
When is it silent? 

What sound has pA, except in Stephen and nephew? What in them? 
When is the Asilent? When are both silent? 

What sound has g always? What letter always follows it? 

When has r a rough sound?) When a smooth sound? When is its 
sound transposed ? 

When has sa sharp hissing sound? Why? When a flat sound like 
z? Why? Has it ever the sound of sh? Why? Has it ever the 
sound of zh? Why? Hass its hissing sound in dis? Why? Has it 
ever the sound of z in dis? Why? When is it silent? 

When has sc the sound of s? Whenthe sound of sk? Has it ever 
the sound of sh? Why? 

What sound has ¢ generally? Has it ever the sound of sh? Why? 
Has it ever the sound of tsh? Why? Is it silent or sounded, when 
followed by le or en, and preceded by s? In which other words is it 
silent ? 

What sounds has th? When is the h silent? 

What sound has v always? When is it silent ? 

What sound has w when aconsonant? How is wh sounded? When 
is w silent ? 

Has x ever the sound of ks? Why? Has it ever the sound of gz? 
Why? When has it the sound of z? When is it silent? 

What sound has y when asconsonant ? 

What sound has z generally? Has it ever the sound of zh? Why? 
When is it silent? 


Of Accent. 


What is primary accent? 

What is secondary accent? 

When a word of two or more syllables, accented on the second, takes 
an additional syllable, and thereby throws the primary accent forward 
and the secondary accent back on to the first syllable, what sound should 
the vowel in the first syllable have, if it be followed by a consonant? 

Can you give any examples? 


Of Syliabication. 


When a single consonant comes between two vowels, to which sylla- 
ble must it be joined, if the preceding vowel be pronounced long? ‘To 
which if it be pronounced short? Are there any exceptions ? 

When two consonants come between two vowels, to which syllable 
must they be joined, if the preceding vowel be pronounced long? To 
which if it be pronounced short ? 


498 APPENDIX. 


When three consonants come between two vowels, to which syllable 
must they be joined, if the preceding vowel be pronounced long! To 
which if it be pronounced short ? 

When four consonants, not proper to begin a syllable, come between 
two vowels, which must be joined to the former, and which to the latter 
syllable ? 

Should two vowels, not being a diphthong, be in separate syllables ? 

How should compound words be divided ! 

~ How should derivative, grammatical, and other particular termina- 


tions generally be written ? 


OF THE RULES FOR SPELLING 


The Plurals of Nouns, Participles, Present Tense, and Preterit of 
Verbs, and the Comparative and Superlative Degrees of Adjectives. 
When a noun, verb, or adjective ends with y, preceded by a conso- 

nant, how should the plural, present tense, preterit, comparative and su- 

perlative degrees, be formed? 

Should y be retained or changed in the present or imperfect participle ? 

When y is preceded by a vowel, should it be changed or retained in 
the plural, participle, present tense, preterit, comparative and superla- 
tive degrees? Are there any exceptions? 

Should y be changed to 2 in those words. which end with y, preceded 
by a consonant, upon assuming an additional syllable, beginning with a 
consonant? How when y is preceded by a vowel? 

When should the final consonant be doubled, on taking another sylla- 
ble beginning with a vowel? When should it remain single? Are there 


any exceptions ? 


COBB’S SERIES OF SCHOOL BOOKS, 


| NOW PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOK. 
SELLERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 


ee ee ee 


SPELLING COURSE. 


_Cobb’s FIRST BOOK, or InrropuctTion To THE sPELLING-BOOK, 
&c., designed for the use of small children. This little work contains 
the Alphabet, and easy words of one, two, and three syllables, in which 
there are no double vowels or consonants, or silent letters, and only the 
long and short sounds of the vowels. 

Cobb’s SPELLING-BOOK, containing the Rudiments of the En- 
glish Language, arranged in catechetical order; an organization of the 
Alphabet ; a greater number of spelling lessons than are generally in- 
serted in Spelling-Books ; many useful tables ; and the proper names in 
the New Testament. Designed to teach the orthography and orthoepy 
of J. Walker. 

Cobb’s EXPOSITOR, or Sequet to THE SpELLING-Book, contain- 
ing about TWELVE THOUSAND of the most common words of the language ; 
in which each word is accurately spelled, pronounced, divided, and ex- 
plained, and the primary and secondary accent noted ; to which are pre- 
fixed, Concise Principles of Pronunciation, and Rules for the Accentua- 
tion and Division of Words. 

Cobb’s Abridgment of J. Walker’s CRITICAL PRONOUNCING 
DICTIONARY. In this Dictionary, Mr. Walker’s principles of orthog- 
raphy and pronunciation are strictly followed ; and, in addition, each word 
is systematically divided ; the secondary accent ‘noted ; the plurals of 
nouns, the present tense and preterit of verbs, the participles, and the va- 
riable adjectives, are inserted; and all useless repetitions of words are 
avoided ; to which are prefixed, Concise Principles of Pronunciation, and 
Rules for Accentuation and the Division of Words ; ; with an Appendix, 
containing a class of words which are in common use in this country, 
and not found in Walker’s Dictionary. 


READING COURSE. 


Cobb’s JUVENILE READER, No.1; containing interesting, moral 
and instructive Reading Lessons, composed of easy words of one and 
two syllables, designed for the use of small children in families and 
schools. 

Cobb’s JUVENILE READER, No. 2; containing interesting, moral, 
and instructive Reading Lessons, composed of words of one, two, and 
three syllables ; designed, in connexion with No. 1, to accompany the 
Spelling-Book. 

Cobb’s JUVENILE READER, No. 3; containing interesting, his- 
torical, moral, and instructivesReading Lessons, composed of words of a 
greater number of syllables than the lessons in Nos. 1 and 2; and a 
g:eater variety of composition, both in prose and poetry, selected from 
_the writings of the best American and English authors; with Observa 

tions on the Principles of Good Reading. 
Cobb’s SEQUEL TO THE JUVENILE READERS ; comprising 


500 _ NOTICES. 


a selection of Lessons in Prose and Poetry, from highly esteemed Amer- 
ican and English writers. Designed for the use of higher classes m 
schools and academies; and to impress the minds of youth with senti- 
ments of virtue and religion. ; 

Cobb’s NORTH AMERICAN READER, containing a greater va- 
riety and more extensive selection of pieces in Prose and Poetry than 
are contained in the Sequel to the Juvenile Readers, from very highly 
esteemed American and English writers. Also, Observations on Good 
Reading; the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution of the 
United States; Political Definitions ; Variable Orthography ; Concise 
Principles of Pronunciation; Rules for the Division of Words; and 
the Rules for Spelling the Plurals of Nouns, Participles, Present Tense, 
and Preterit of Verbs, and the Comparative and Superlative Degrees of 
Adjectives. Designed for the use of the highest Classes in Schools and 


Academies. 
ARITHMETICAL COURSE. st 
Cobb’s ARITHMETICAL RULES AND TABLES, designed for 


the use of small children in families and schools. 

“ Cobb’s EXPLANATORY ARITHMETICK, No. 1; containin 
mental, theoretical, and practical exercises, in the fundamental Rules of 
Arithmetick, viz: Numeration, Addition, Substraction, Multiplication, 
and Divisiun ; in which the principles of each rule are fully and familiarly 
expressed ; and the reasons for every operation on the slate minutely 
and clearly explained ; and adapted to the understanding and use of small 
children, in*families and schools. 

Cobb’s EXPLANATORY ARITHMETICK, No. 2; contammg 
the Compound Rules; and all that is necessary of every other Rule in 
Arithmetick for practica! purposes and the transaction of business; in 
which the principles of each rule are fully and familiarly expressed ; and 
the reasons for every operation on the slate minutely and clearly ex- 
plained ; and adapted to the understanding and use of larger children, in 
schools and academies. ‘To which is annexed, a Practical System of 
Book-Keeping. 

Cobb’s CIPHERING-BOOK, Nos. 1 and 2; containing all the sums 
and questions for theoretical and practical exercises in Cobb’s Explana- 
tory Arithmetick, Nos. 1 and 2. 


NOTICES. 


“This Spelling-Book has peculiar claims to attention. Mr. Cobb has evidently be- 
stowed much attention on such subjects; and his Spelling-Book wears a formidable 
air of authority, from the labour and research by which it is characterized. The les- 
sons are uncommonly full and accurate. The whole work, indeed, is highly credit- 
able fo the author’s intelligence and industry.”— American Journal of Education. 

‘The author has certainly evinced great industry and research, and has shown him- 
self well acquainted with the department in which he has so diligently laboured.”— 
New York Times. 

“* Cobb’s Spelling-Book is, we are confident, by far the most correct one at present 
to be found.”—Cleveland ‘ Ohio) Herald. 

“We have before us another work from the indefatigable pen of Mr Lyman Cobb, 
author of the Spelling-Book, School Dictionary, &c. Itis entitled ‘* Cobb’s Expositor, 
or Sequel to the Spelling-Book, containing about twelve thousand of the most common 
words of the language, accurately spelled, pronounced, divided, and explained,” &e. 
The primary and secondary accent is particularly noted, and a character for the latter 
introduced. The work is designed for the,use of schools ; and the labonr of the com- 
pilation has been performed in such a manner as to bring every word within the com- 
prehension and capacity of a child who has made considerable progress in spelling. It 


= 


NOTICES. 501 


promises to be, as the respective publications of the author have been, a practical and 
useful work.”—Albany Argus. 

“Mr. Cobb has recently published an Abridgment of Walker's Dictionary, in the 
usual size and form of dictionary abridgments. We have given the work some atten- 
tion, and found it, in many importaiNrespects, superiour to those that are in ordinary 
use. The plurals of nouns are given, and the preterits and participles of verbs; the 
words are ail divided into syllables, and, for the first time in any Dictionary, have the 
mark of the secondary accent.”— U. S. (Philadelphia) Gazette. 

“ Cobb’s Dictionary has been put into our hands lately, and upon a cursory examina- 
tion, we have found it to be a compilation made with care and accuracy. The author 
has adopted the pronunciation of Walker throughout, as found in the London editions. 
We must still think it is entitled to the preference over any other. Asa standard of 
orthoepy, we are decisively cf opinion, after long attention to this subject, and much 
investigation, Walker’s system is preferable to any other that has appeared either this 
side the Atlantick or the other. Mr. Cobb's Dictionary contains the plurals of nouns 
and the preterit of verbs, as forming an additional syllable by the addition of sor es, 
é&c.. To these are added the participles and adjectives, which will occasionally be 
found convenient.,—.\ew York Evening Post. 

“Mr. Cobb’s School Dictionary seems calculated to be very useful to children and 
foreigners learning the language. He has followed Walker, and made his compilation 


from the best London editions ; adding the plurals of nouns and preterits of verbs, the 


participles and variable adjectives, &c., all which, to foreigners especially, must obvi- 
ously beof great service."—New York Commercial Advertiser. 

“Cobb’s Juvenile Reader, Nos. 1, 2, and 3. These little volumes together form a 
series of elementary reading books, graduated to the capacities and tastes of children. 
The writer has been at some pains to arrange the different lessons in such a manner 
that each preceding one shall prepare the pupil for the one that follows, both as to or- 
thography and subject. 

.“*'The practice, as Mr. Cobb justly remarks in his preface, of giving children dia- 
logues between animals, &c., containing statements and details of things which never 
fiid and never can happen. is as destructive of truth and intellectual improvement as it 
is contrary to the principles of nature and phiiosophy. Notwithstanding the great 
improvement which of late years has taken place in children’s books of instruction, 
there was still a want of elementary works, of a proper description, and the one before 
us, which is well calculated to supply the deficiency, must be found very useful in 
families and infant schools."_—Wew York American. 

‘We have received ‘Cobb’s Juvenile Reader, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, containing progres- 
sive lessons. Mr. Cobb is advantageously known by his excellent School Dictionary. 
In the little volumes before us, Mr. C. has, in addition to a judicious selection of sub- 
jects, and progressive arrangement of words, been careful to introduce many words 
most liable to be mispelled, so that the eye of the young reader may be made early fa 
miliar with their orthography; as restiff instead of restive, camphire for camphor, 
cipher for cypher, hazel for hazle, and many others. It should also be noticed, that 
nothing has been allowed place in the books, false, unnatural, or unphilosophical. 
With these advantages, Mr. Cobb’s books may claim a place in our primary schools, 
upon the tenable ground of usefulness.”— U. 8. (Philadelphia) Gazette. 

“The selections are from writers of acknowledged merit, and appear to us to be 
made with judgement. 

“ We are not aware of any reading book, for beginners in schools, in which the num- 
ber of syllables is limited as in the first and second numbers of this work.”—New 
York Evening Post. i 

“ The first book will be a valuable auxiliary to little curly-headed and rosy-cheeked 
‘gentlemen who plume themselves upon having passed through the intricate mysteries 
of the alphabet. 

“The second book is adapted to children of a more advanced age, and may be very 
appropriately used by those who have mastered the first. It contains several stories, 
written in clear language, and inculcates useful! morals. - 

“The third claims a more serious notice. Init much instruction in the elements of 
natural philosophy and history is conveyed to the more advanced and intelligent reader. 
The brief chapters on the dog, alum, cork, the horse, heat, licorice, and light, are pre- 


-cisely the kind of composition to be placed in the hands of youth.”—Vew York Mirror: 


“ Cobb’s Sequel to the Juvenile Readers—Collins 4&- Hannay. The reputation and 
success which rewarded the assiduity of Mr. Cobb, in his former labours for the benefit 
of his youthful fellow-citizens, as they have encouraged him to this additional perform- 
ance, are, also, a criterion of the fidelity and skill with which it is executed. 

“The ‘Sequel’ forms a neat volume of 216 pages, consisting of selections in prose 
and poetry, ‘designed for the use of higher classes in schools and academies; and to 
impress the minds of youth with sentiments of virtue and religion”—WN. Y. Allas. 


Fe Se 


‘book, which he calls “ Explanatory Arithmetick.” It is entirely elementary, and in 


teachers. The mental operation, it has always appeared to us, required some visible 


which Mr. Cobb has adapted this little book to the minds of ehildren, No.1, which is 


‘Messrs. Luke Loomis & Co. 


502 “NOTICES. 


§ 


‘« Mr. Lyman Cobb, of New York, who has been so successful in the compilation of 
a Dictionary and a Spelling-Book, for schools, has recently published a very small 


arrangement and plan, takes a middle ground with reference to the works of Daboll 
Walsh, and Adams, and those of Smith, Colbugf;and Emerson. The former, it will 
be recollected, gave rules, with few or no explanations. ‘The latter omitted rules, and 
depended entirely on illustration. ‘he attempt of Mr. Cobb is worth the notice of 


sign, and some established rnles."— U. S. Gazette. a 
‘“« We have seen the Iixplanatory Arithmetick, No. 1, by Lyman Cobb, of this city” 
the author of popular schoolbooks much used throughout the Union, and we have no 
hesitation in expressing our entire approval and recommendation of the manner in > 


before us, contains only the fundamental rules of Arithmetick ; but they are presented 
in a manner at once so simple and lucid, and have so many examples for mental and 
mathematical-operations, that no child can pass through the book, under the direction 
of a faithful teacher, without having the rules, their reasons, and their uses, indelibly 
fixed in his memory. No. 2, will contain the compound rules, and a practical system 
of book-keeping. Mr. Cobb has earned a celebrity by his labours in philology and gen- 
eral education that few men attain, who, like him, have not passed the meridian of 
life."— Badger’s Weekly Messenger. 


The following Resolutions were adopted before the Sequel to the Juvenile Reader, 
the Expositor, and Explanatory Arithmetick were published : 
Pittsburgh, 2d April, 1831. 


Gentlemen—The Pittsburgh Association of Teachers have, agreeably to your request, 
examined the several works of Mr. Lyman Cobb, which you have put into their hands: 
they beg to present the result of their investigation in the following resolutions, which 
they have unanimously adopted : 

Resolved, That after having carefully examined the Spelling-Book of Mr. Lyman 
Cobb, we feel persuaded that it is admirably adapted to answer the end of its judicious 
author; that its arrangement is good, and that its Orthography and Orthoepy are correct 
according to the principles of Walker, and as such we cordially recommend it to the 
adoption of Schools in general; and also feel that we are doing a service to our scholars 
in introducing the same into our respective schools, 

Resolved, That Cobb’s Abridgment of Walker’s Critical Pronouncing Dictionary is 
well worthy of publick patronage. His undeviating adherence to Walker’s principles 
of Orthography and Orthoepy is, in our estimation, a high recommendation of the 
work, and renders it superiour to many other abridgments now in use. His additions 
of plurals of nouns, and the preterits of verbs, &c. will render it very valuable to many 
who wish to consult it. Asa whole, we would give it a decided preference to any 
abridgment with which we are acquainted. 

Resolved, That we have examined Cobb’s JUVENILE READER, Nos. 1, 2, and 3, 
with very considerable pleasure, and are of opinion that such works have long been a 
desideratum for schoolbooks. Many that have been in use have descended too far 
below the capacity of those for whose use they were designed, and have dwelt more 
in fiction than in reality; while others have altogether neglected the reader’s capacity, 


| 
: 


-and discussed subjects far beyond the reach of a juvenile mind. Mr. Cobb has happily 


blended instruction and amusement, simplicity and dignity; and has progressively 
advanced in a greater variety of composition, as well as in the importance and interest 
of his subject, as the increased capacity and attainments of his readers seemed to re- 
quire. Wethink he deserves the thanks of the friends of youth for his valuable labours, 
and would most cordially recommend for general adoption his Juvenile Reader. 
THOMAS MAYLIN, President. 
Joun Winter, Sec. of P. A. T. 


Extract from the Minutes of the Pennsylvania Association of Monitorial Teachers. 
Philadelphia, Sept. 2, 1834. 
Sir :—The Committee appointed to examine books, report that they have had under 

consideration those which were referred to them at the last meeting of the Association. 
They would recommend to the teachers comprising this Association, to use their influ- 
ence in having introduced into the publick schools “ Cobb’s Walker,” as the best School 
Dictionary with which they are acquainted. The high character of all Mr. Cobb’s 
books, the Skill and critical knowledge displayed -throughout their pages, render any 
farther notice of them by your committee superfluous. 

J. L. REECE, 

A. T. W. WALKER, 

SAMUEL W. WATSON. 


io 


od 


‘ 


NOTICES. 503 | 


There is no literary labour more important to the community than the preparing of 
elementary schoolbooks; and it is much to ber egretted that many of the books in our 


schools have been written or compiled by persons not having the necessary qualifications 


for such work. It will, however, ely admitted that Mr. Cobb does not come under 
this censure. His books are b raduated to the capacities of children, and are 
more systematick and accurate in orthography and pronunciation than any series 
of schoo!books that has come under my observation. The reading books are specimens 
of.good taste, contain much valuable instruction, and never fail to engage the attention 
of children. They are also free from fiction, and absurd colloquics of inferiour animals. 
The Spelling-book is remarkable for its accuracy, and contains more words than any 
other that I have seen. In his edition of Walker’s Dictionary he has preserved Walker 
in his purity, at the same time that many very valuable additions have been made to 
that author. His Expositor is an intermediate book, containing about 12,000 words 
correctly spelled, pronounced, and defined. His Explanatory Arithmetick is what its 
name implies, and is a work of merit. Indeed, all the works of this author indicate a 
familiar acquaintance with the youthful mind, and the attention and, accuracy with 
which they are brought through the press, induce the belief that Mr. Cobb has done 
more than any other author to check the spirit of innovation which is vitiating our lan- 
guage, at the same time that he has seized upon all the improvements and facilities for 
interesting youth that characterize the best publications of the day. I have introduced 
these books into my school, and most heartily recommend them to others. 
JOSEPH McKEEN, Principal of Union Hall Academy. 
New York, December Ist, 1834. 
New York, 12th mo. 6, 1834. 

I have for a number of years made use of Lyman Cobb’s Spelling-Book and School 
Dictionary, and highly approve of them, not only for their accuracy, but for the excellent 
classification and arrangement of the lessons, and the great number of words in the 
Spelling-Book, and for the insertion of the plurals, participles, preterits, &cc., and the 
botice of secondary accent, and the division of words in the Dictionary. The class of 
words in which two or more are pronounced alike and spelled differently, are not inter- 
mingled with other words throughout the book as in all other Spelling-Books, but are 
given only with their definitions, such as hazl-and hale, peel and peal, and such as are 
differently accented, as absent and absent, conduct and conduct, when used as a 
different part of speech; neither are the words in which c, s, and ¢ have the sound of 
sh intermingled, as in all other Spelling-Books, as gracious, pension, notion, &c., but 
are separated. His more recent works, the First Book, Expositor, and the books 
forming the Reading and Arithmetical course, I think well of from the use I have made 
of them in my school. The plan and matter of the Reading Books are good as well as 
interesting and instructive to the young scholar. The graduation of the words in the 
Juvenile Readers, not only according to the number of syllablesin each word, but alse 


‘to the age and capacities of the pupil, is, no doubt, an admirable improvement. The 


clear and full explanations of every term and rule in his two Arithmetical books render 
them at once easy and intelligible tothe pupil. I think every school would be benefited 
by the introduction of this series of books. 
SOLOMON JENNER, 
Principal of the English and Classical Academy, 51 Henry-street. 

We, the undersigned, have introduced into our schools Mr. Cobb’s series of School- 
books, comprising a Spelling, Reading, and Arithmetical course; and we do most 
cheerfully express our opinion that the excellent arrangement and classification of the 
different lessons, and the clear and lucid manner in which the rules and explanations 
are given, are such as greatly to facilitate the acquisition of the subjects of which they 
treat. We wish them in all the schools of our country. 

Trenton, Nov. 25, 1834.—Rufus Dann, Principal of the Trenton Academy; Misses 


. Imlay, Preceptresses of the Female Boarding and Day School; Edward Murray, 


Precepior of a Private School. 

Princeton, Nov. 26, 1834.—Nehemiah Welling, Principal of Princeton Academy, 

Newark, Nov. 12, 1834.—Nathan Hedges, Principal of the Male and Female Semi- 
nary ; Bernard Kearney, Teacher of a Select School; George S. Porter, Teacher of a 
Private School. 

From a cursory examination of the following schoolbooks by Mr. Lyman Cobb, viz: 
Cobb’s Dictionary, Sequel, Spelling-book, Explanatory Arithmetick, Expositor, Juve- 
nile Reader, First Book, and Arithmetical Rules and Tables, I do not hesitate to give 
my opinion that they are admirably calculated to effect the end for which they are. 
intended, They deserve, and I trust will receive, a handsome share of publéck patronage. 

Philadelphia, July 2, 1834. 

The whole series are, in my opinion, superiour to most of those similar compositions 
how generally used in our schools and academies. I shall give them a preference. 

Philadelphia, 1834. M. J. BOYLE. 


; 504 NOTICES. 


Sm Baltimore, Oct. 1834. 

Cobb’s Schoolbooks—A series of very good books, well calculated for the important 
purposes for which they were designed. a A. B. CLEVELAND, 

{ mat S. & A. CLARKE. 

7 We consider Mr. L. Cobb’s series of Schos as well adapted to the end for 
which they are designed, and highly deserving tle, attention of all who are engaged i 
the instruction of youth. . . KING, 

Baltimore, Oct. 27, 1834. G. 8. INGLE 


This series of Schoolbookg has become very popular, and is generally used in nial 
adh of the country... They are highly approved, and much used in the cities of New 

ork, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Albany, Vittsburgh, Buffalo, Trenton, Princeton, New 
Brunswick, Newark, Hudson, Lancaster, &c. &c. Soine or all of the books of this 
series are printed in ‘wenty-one different places in the United States, and two in Upper 
Canada Some of this series are printed and sold to the amount of one hundred and 
Jjif/ty thousand copies annually, and the sales are daily increasing. Some or all of this 
series are in about one hundred and sixty Schools in the city of New York. 


NOTICE OF THE MINIATURE OR LITTLE LEXICON. 

Miniature Lericon, or Ladies’ Reticule Companion. Harper & Brothers, N. York. 

This work has been published by the Harpers in a very convenient and portable form, 
with an engraved titlepage, and a handsome portrait of the author, Lyman Cobb, 
painted by Shumway, and engraved by Gimber. The volume contains, in addition to 
the usual number of words in common pocket and school dictionaries, which are care- 
fully spelled, accented, defined, and systematically divided, about sixty pages of “‘ En- 
glish verbal distinctions,” comprising the peculiar and intricate classes of words in the 
English language, properly arranged in six classes, with the distinctive peculiarities of 
each class, minutely noticed and explained. We have frequently felt the want of just 
» such a classing of words as we find inthis work. We subjoin a few of them: air and 
J heir ; auger and augur ; berry and bury ; abuse, andto abuse ; excuse, and to excuse ; 
rise, and to rise; abstract, aud to abstract ; collect, and to collect ; frequent, and to 
JSrequent ; advice,and to advise; bath, and to bathe ; belief, and to believe; grass,and 
to yraze; etc. etc. Around each of the pages containing these “ verbal distinctions,” 
are specimens of false grammar, with corrected sentences on the opposite sides of the 
page. We think much of these examples, They will lead to the correction, no doubt, 
of many inaccuracies in speaking and writing. The pages of the Dictionary are each 
surrounded by maxims and sayings, calculated to impart a great deal of instruction 
and amusement. Many of these are invaluable to every one. We believe that no 
work has ever been issued from the press of the Harpers that deserves the thanks of 
the community, particularly the ladies, more than this publication. Mr. Cobb has 
compiled several popular schoolbooks, and by those, as well as by his Critical Review 
of Dr. Webster’s works, in which he has done more than any other author to check 
the spirit of innovation that is vitiating our language, has gaineda very highly deserved 
celebrity ; and, we doubt not, the compilation of the “ Miniature Lexicon” will add 
more to his literary fame than any of his previous compilations. We earnestly recom- 
mend to all our readers, and especially the ladies, the purchase of this work.—WVew 


York Mirror. 
PUBLISHED 
By B. & S. Cotuns, Harreer & Brotuers, Manton Day, Barr- 
Lett & Raynor, and James G. SHaw, New York; Anprus & Jupp, 
Hartford, (Ct.); B. Oups, Newark, (N. J.); B. Davenport, Trenton, 
(N. J.); Jamus Kay, Jr., & Broruer, Philadelphia; Joseru JEwerr, 
Baltimore; O. Steg e, Albany ; Luxe Loomis, Pittsburgh; Macx & 
Anprus, and Davin D. Spencer, Ithaca; Cuapman & Fiacier, and 
Wituuams & Hunt, Oxford; Birpsaty & Hunriey, Elmira; F. W. 
Rirrer, Havana; Knowiton & Rice, Watertown; A. W. Witeus, 
James Faxon & Co., and O. G. Sreetz, Buffalo, (N. Y.); Sparrorp 
& Srerretr, Erie; Hickok & Srarx, Lewistown, (Pa.); Josian 
Drake, Cincinnati; Horton J. Howarp, St. Clairsville; J. R. & A. 
Lipritt, Zanesville; Rice & Parxer, Cleveland; Spencer & Can- 
FIELD, Cuyahoga Falls, (Ohio); Srowety, & Griswoup, Detroit ; H. 
Leavenwortn, St. Catharines, (U. C.); and C. G. Prtron, St. 
Thomas, (U. C.) 


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